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A CAPTIVE OF WAR 



By 

/ 

SOLON HYDE 

Hospital Steward Seventeenth Regiment 
Ohio Volunteer Infantry 



New York 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS a? CO. 

M C M 



_r> 8802__ 

j 'srv tvnu htCt.*ED 

' OCT 31 190Q 

Copyright mtry 

StCt^NP COPY. 

OROt« DIVISION, 
^Oy 171900 






Copyright, rgoo, by 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO, 



To 
Miss CLARA BARTON 

Whose Life Work 

Has been to minister to the bettering 

Of the Condition of the unfortunate in 

War, Pestilence and Famine, 

This book is respectfully inscribed 

As a tribute of appreciation 

By the 

AUTHOR 

Columbus, Ohio. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I 
The Battle of Chickamauga 13 

CHAPTER n 
Captured by Forrest's Cavalry 23 

CHAPTER in 
Southern Men and Southern Views 35 

CHAPTER IV 
Going into Durance 47 

CHAPTER V 
" Away Down South in Dixie " 57 

CHAPTER VI 
Libby and Pemberton Prisons 69 

CHAPTER VII 
The Sugar Riot 78 

CHAPTER VIII 
Transferred to Danville 88 

CHAPTER IX 

Mode of Life and Rations at Danville 102 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER X 
Cold, Smallpox, and Scurvy no 

CHAPTER XI 
More Hospital Duty ii6 

CHAPTER Xn 
Attempts to Escape 123 

CHAPTER XIII 
'■ Beast " Butler and Southern Rights 132 

CHAPTER XIV 
The Spring Campaign of 1864 137 

CHAPTER XV 
Our Escape from Danville 142 

CHAPTER XVI 
Friendly " Contrabands " 150 

CHAPTER XVII 
"Jugged" Once More iS9 

CHAPTER XVIII 
In Henry County Jail 167 

CHAPTER XIX 
Across the River Styx I73 

CHAPTER XX 

From Danville to Andersonville 182 



CONTENTS 9 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XXI 
Andersonville 187 

CHAPTER XXH 
My First Night in the Stockade 194 

CHAPTER XXHI 
Meetings with Old Friends igq 

CHAPTER XXIV 
" Bean Soup ! — Hot Bean Soup ! " 213 

CHAPTER XXV 
The Execution of the Raiders 222 

CHAPTER XXVI 
Scurvy 225 

CHAPTER XXVII 
Severity of the Guards 232 

CHAPTER XXVIII 
A Lucky Call 238 

CHAPTER XXIX 
The Hospital and Dispensary 245 

CHAPTER XXX 
The Medical Staff 251 

CHAPTER XXXI 
The Cemetery .- 259 



lo CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XXXII 
The Irishmen of Andersonville 266 

CHAPTER XXXIII 
A Prison Dandy 271 

CHAPTER XXXIV 
In Society 278 

CHAPTER XXXV 
Captain Wirz 290 

CHAPTER XXXVI 
Flogging a " Niggah Wench " 2gg 

CHAPTER XXXVII 
Prisons North and South 303 

CHAPTER XXXVIII 
The Bottle of Turpentine 311 

CHAPTER XXXIX 
A Southern Family's Bereavement 316 

CHAPTER XL 
Jeff Davis's Speech at Macon 319 

CHAPTER XLI 
The Stockade Emptied 325 

CHAPTER XLII 
Gcnrral Sherman's Footprints 333 



CONTENTS II 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XLIII 
Robert Toornbs and Alexander H. Stephens 34^ 

CHAPTER XLIV 
John Calhoun and State Rights 349 

CHAPTER XLV 
The End Approaching 35^ 

CHAPTER XLVI 
The Prison Hell at Salisbury 363 

CHAPTER XLVH 
A Slaveholder's Dilemma 372 

CHAPTER XLVni 
Once More Under the Old Flag ! 384 



A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

CHAPTER I 

THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 

IT was Saturday, the 19th of September, 1863, 
— a lovely fall morning-. The sun's rays were 
mellowed by the haze of Indian summer, and the 
air was crisp with early frost and cool for north- 
ern Georgia, 

About half-past eight, after a hard night's 
march from the extreme right of Gen. Rosecrans's 
army, we were halted near the extreme left, and 
given a short time to rest and prepare our rations. 
The suddenness of the move and the caution ex- 
ercised in carrying it out were accepted evidences 
that we were in the neighborhood of the enemy 
and preparing to engage in battle, whether on the 
offensive or defensive we knew not. 

Our breakfast disposed of, we were once more 
ordered into line and, after a brief time, were 
led into position in line of battle. Our regiment 
was the Seventeenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, 
under the command of Colonel John M. Connell, 
and Lieutenant-Colonel Durbin Ward (since Gen. 

13 



14 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Durbin Ward) of the First Brigade, Third Divi- 
sion (Gen. Brannan), of the Fourteenth Army 
Corps, General George H. Thomas commanding. 

Already several artillery shots had been fired 
by the enemy, one of which fell near where we 
were halted in line before being placed in final 
position. It was a grand sight to see regiment 
after regiment wheeling into line, their bright 
guns flashing the reflected rays of the morning 
sun. A remarkable stillness seemed to settle 
over the men, the voices of the commanding of- 
ficers sounding clear on the September air. Or- 
derlies were busy in carrying orders, and ever and 
anon the air was shaken by the heavy boom of 
cannon or pierced by the peculiar shriek of ball. 

Thus we found ourselves entering the battle of 
Chickamauga, Georgia, some six or eight miles 
south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I do no dis- 
credit to brave men when I say there were pale 
cheeks to be seen along that line, for coupled 
with them were the flashing eye, firm, steady step, 
and defiant look that betokened determination. 
Their muskets were grasped in steady hands. It 
seemed to me, as I looked upon those ranks of 
men, their muskets held at " order arms," that a 
jest at that moment would have been most inap- 
propriate. 

Immediately in front, with unlimbered guns, 
was the battery of our brigade preparing to give 



THE LINE OF BATTLE 15 

its initiatory shot. Already the firing along the 
skirmish line was becoming general, not only in 
our front, but on, on, on, in the distance to the 
right, until the sounds lost their individuality in 
a deep rumbling that told, in the language of 
conflict, that another page of protest was being 
written in characters of blood against the false 
idea of secession, — characters which are indelible 
and sacred. 

For a distance of nearly six miles, could the 
eye have followed it, the sunshine glistened along 
a line of bristling bayonets, and wreaths of blue 
smoke arising above the tree-tops served to locate 
the line of battle formed by the contending armies. 
The rattling of batteries taking new positions, 
and the hurried shifting of brigades and regi- 
ments, the flying hither and thither of couriers, 
the clanking of the iron scabbards of moving cav- 
alrymen, and clouds of smoke and dust, showed 
the work to have begun in earnest. 

I had little time for mental notes as I sat my 
horse beside an ambulance, for, borne on a 
stretcher by two comrades, came the first sad fruit 
of this harvest of death, — a wounded man whom 
I, as hospital steward, was ordered to carry to a 
place convenient for a hospital. 

Water being the great essential at a field hos- 
pital, we loaded the poor fellow into the ambu- 
lance and started in search of a good spot, which 



i6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

we found at Cloud's Spring, nearly a mile away, 
— a beautiful spring that burst out at the foot of 
the line of hills skirting the Chickamauga valley 
on the west, in the midst of a thick, shady grove 
that extended up the hillside to the left, embracing 
the Cloud residence on the summit. It seemed 
as if nature was extending her hands to us in the 
hour of our extremity, in presenting this twofold 
blessing — ample shade and an abundance of cool, 
pure water. A hundred yards to the right ran the 
Chattanooga road, stretching to the left over a 
spur of the hills, which at this point took the 
form of a semi-amphitheatre ranged around the 
spring and grove, its open side looking toward 
the battlefield. At the point on the hill where the 
road was lost to sight in a straggling grove stood 
a wooden church. In the other direction the road 
led toward the battlefield and for some distance 
skirted an open field overgrown with rank weeds 
to the height of a man's head. Near the spring, in 
whose water minnows were sporting, stood a log 
spring-house which received a portion of the 
water from the spring through a wooden trough. 
All these surroundings I observed as my eyes took 
in the advantages of the location for the work 
in hand, while we busied ourselves in preparing 
the ground and erecting tents for the reception 
and comfort of the wounded that might be thrown 
on our hands. 



HEROISM OF THE WOUNDED 17 

The hospital wagon was sent in search of straw 
for bedding, of which a good supply was happily 
found in an old barn near by. Our stores of 
sanitary goods were unpacked; instruments were 
examined and put in order, and lint and bandages 
were put in convenient places and opened out for 
work. 

The noise of battle to our right was terrible. 
In an hour, perhaps, from the time we put up the 
first tent and displayed the red liospital flag, there 
were twenty tents on the ground, all full of 
wounded men, while the ambulances were bring- 
ing others from the field in such numbers as to 
make it impossible to care for them properly. We 
made pallets of straw for them under the trees, 
while those who were slightly wounded had in a 
measure to take care of themselves or to assist in 
caring for the less fortunate. 

There were many examples of noble heroism 
exhibited by those who were severely, though not 
dangerously, wounded, — a spirit of unselfishness 
remarkable and commendable. I remember one 
instance of a man who had been shot through the 
windpipe by a side shot. On being approached 
by an attendant with bandages, he said ; " Never 
mind me; give me some lint and bandages and I 
will bind it up myself; you go and see those who 
are more in need of attention." 

Poor fellow, every time he drew breath the air 



i8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

whistled through his mutilated throat like a leaky 
bellows until he covered it with compresses 
and bound them on with his handkerchief. Soon 
afterward I saw him pitching his dog-tent under 
one of the trees. Such are the cases of heroism 
that never find a place in history, and yet are 
more truly heroic than some that are immortalized 
by polished columns and flattering song. 

Our surgeons attended to the wounds as rapidl)- 
as the nature of the cases would admit, having 
divided themselves into squads in order to facili- 
tate the work and prevent clashing. To each 
squad was assigned a particular duty, as to one 
the task of attending to minor cases as they came 
in; to another the cutting out of balls. Others, 
again, passed on cases for amputation, still others 
to bandaging and dressing flesh wounds ; prescrib- 
ing and administering stimulants and morphine to 
those in immediate want of them; or operating 
upon those cases decided upon as requiring im- 
mediate amputation. Yet, notwithstanding this 
systematic division of labor, it took time to see to 
all with new cases accumulating rapidly, and 
many poor fellows were beyond the reach of 
human aid before they could be cared for, and had 
passed the veil that intervenes between life and 
the great hereafter. 

Those were bitter, sad hours, with so many 
needing help, but it could not be otherwise. 



THE HORRORS OF BATTLE 19 

Some had to be neglected, if inability to attend to 
all could be called neglect. The wounded were 
accumulating fast, all the ambulances being busy. 
The battle was raging fiercely off to our right, 
and now and then a random cannon-shot would 
pass over our heads, or a shell burst in air, shak- 
ing it like the voice of a shrieking demon. We 
knew from the sound of the musketry that the 
ground was being hotly contested, and we were 
conscious, too, as the din settled more and more 
to the right, that our boys were being pressed 
closely and falling back reluctantly. The sound 
of the musketry fire was not unlike the ominous 
muttering roar of a sweeping tornado, or the un- 
broken thunder of the plunging cataract. Ac- 
companying it was the rapid deep booming of the 
artillery, mingled with the indescribable shrieking 
whistle of flying shells and the quick sharp report 
of those that exploded in the air — the most harm- 
less, and yet most calculated to carry terror to 
the soul. The very earth seemed to tremble be- 
neath the clang and clash of the uproar: even 
now, though intervening years deaden the sound, 
the recollection of it is painfully real. The groans 
of the wounded and dying around us, friend or 
foe, — for our ambulances brought in Confederate 
wounded when they chanced to find any ; the hor- 
ridly repulsive nature of some of the wounds; 
the stiffened corpses whose distorted features 



ao A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

showed the extreme agony under which they had 
died ; the wild cries and maledictions of those who 
had become crazed by their sufferings, — combined 
to fill up a memory picture that can never be for- 
gotten. 

All through the day, without intermission, while 
our hands were busied with the wounded, our 
ears were filled with the noise of battle. The sun 
that gladdened the early morn with such radiance 
now cast a sickly, doubtful light through the 
leaden cloud of smoke that hung as a pall over 
the scene, as if to hide from the eyes of Heaven 
the horrible carnage covering the plain below. 
Ever and anon an increased vehemence of the 
musketry fire, followed by cheers, told of a re- 
sisted charge, though whether of friend or foe 
we could not tell. It was certain, however, from 
the changing position, that our boys were slowly 
falling back, so that by night they must have been 
nearly a mile in the rear of their morning station. 
What an ensanguined mile it must have been if 
the dead were at all in proportion to the wounded ! 

With the shadows of evening came a cessation 
of fighting, but so accustomed had we become to 
the din that the stillness seemed unreal and op- 
pressive, even to a sensation of dread. The cool- 
ness of the night air caused the cloud of smoke 
that hung over us through the day to settle into the 
valley, loading the air with the peculiar scent of 



NIGHT ON THE BATTLEFIELD 21 

burnt powder. As tlie shades of night deepened 
the gloom increased. The timber burning in 
places, set on fire by bursting shells, was reflected 
upon the smoky clouds and gave out a faint, trem- 
bling light at once weird and ghostly. Many 
bodies of the dead were consumed by these fires, 
and no doubt many wounded, who were too help- 
less to crawl away, fell victims to this double tor- 
ture. The stillness of the night, broken only by 
the cries and groans of the wounded, and, oc- 
casionally, by the report of a shell or musket, was 
an evidence that both armies were taking needed 
rest after their hard day's work. The men who 
all day had been intent on repelling an advancing 
foe now had time for reflection. The roll-call 
gave them an idea of their thinned ranks and of 
the terrible trial through which the survivors had 
passed unscathed, as name after name was called 
with no response. They recalled how during the 
excitement of a charge they had seen this one or 
that one fall, whether dead or wounded they could 
not tell; yet the remembrance was so vague that 
it now seemed like a dream, albeit made real by 
the absence of the messmate. 

Night brought us a season of comparative quiet 
in the hospital, and we gladly availed ourselves of 
the opportunity to secure a few hours' rest. The 
day had been a weary one to us, not only physi- 
cally, but mentally, as our nerves had been kept 



22 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

to the utmost tension by the sight of so much 
suffering. A bed of straw beneath one of the trees 
seemed a luxury. Tired though we were, our 
sleep was often disturbed by the heart-piercing 
cries of a wounded man nearing death, as he 
called out, " Water, water, water ! my God, give 
me water ! " 

These cries were borne to us across the night 
from a dense undergrowth perhaps a quarter of 
a mile away. Yet we dared not venture out to 
give the cooling drink, as the enemy's pickets were 
not far away in that direction. The cries grew 
fainter and fainter, until they reached us as a 
mere whisper. These struggles of immortal souls 
nearing their eternal home, loath to leave their 
shattered tenements, alone on the field of battle, 
without a friendly hand to wipe the death-damp 
from the brow, or pillow for the aching head or 
rest for the shattered limb, were calculated to 
awaken sympathy in the most callous heart. The 
wounded m our quarters had settled into a state 
of remarkable quietness, the cool air perhaps 
having an anaesthetic effect upon the wounds that 
disposed the men to sleep and rest. 



CHAPTER II 

CAPTURED BY FORREST's CAVALRY 

MORNING came at last, — the Sabbath morn, 
beautiful and bright as ever. But war 
knows no Sabbath. The rising sun had scarcely 
cast his first rays across the valley ere random 
shots were heard along the line, which soon in- 
creased until it seemed that the whole line must 
be engaged. The rebels had been reinforced during 
the night by troops from Lee's army in Virginia, 
who went into the fight fresh and vigorous, while 
our boys were minus the dead and wounded of the 
day before. The odds were terribly against them 
and we trembled for the results of the day's 
fighting. 

We were now so far to the left of the field (in 
fact to the right in rear of the Confederate 
forces) that we did not receive many of the 
wounded. This was well, as our accommodations 
were already full and we had taken possession 
of the church spoken of above. During the day 
our hospital flag drew the attention of the rebel 
sharpshooters, and they began to send in their 
leaden compliments, while a battery let drive a 

23 



34 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

number of shells, most of which passed over our 
heads and struck in the hillside beyond. Of 
course they were harmless at that altitude, but 
they kept up an infernal screeching and whizzing, 
and became so provokingly familiar as to nip 
twigs over our heads. This caused a panicky feel- 
ing among some of the surgeons, which increased 
with each new screech until the feeling became 
epidemic, resulting in a complete skedaddle of the 
medical force over the hill beyond the church, — 
each one, as he ran, grabbing, as by instinct, an 
instrument case or some implement of the craft. 
As they went zigzagging across the open space 
that lay between our camp and the hill at that 
point, I had to laugh in spite of my own danger. 
I had taken refuge behind a tree, from which I 
had a good view of them. There was something 
in the situation midway between the grand and 
the ridiculous, but inclining so much more to- 
wards the latter than the former, that I laughed 
outright. As they came into the open space, the 
Confederate sharpshooters let drive at them, and 
as the balls went " zip-zip " by them they seemed 
to crouch until their chins and knees came close 
together. When they got into the shelter of the 
trees they would stretch up to their full propor- 
tions and run like deer. My laugh attracted the 
attention of Assistant Surgeon Benedict, of our 
regiment, who, seeing me behind the tree, asked 



THE BETTER PART OF VALOR 25 

if I intended to remain. I told him I intended 
to stay with the wounded. 

" If you do, so will I," he said, and he took to a 
tree. 

Meanwhile I was conscious of a feeling coming 
over me of my tremendous size in comparison 
with the tree I was behind, which seemed to de- 
crease in proportion to my increase until it became 
most uncomfortably small. The sharpshooters 
had evidently got their eyes on us. A ball nipped 
a twig near my head. I told the doctor they were 
becoming reckless and we had better make for 
the spring-house. We were an enthusiastic crowd, 
the doctor and I, and so intensely interested that 
the suggestion was taken as a motion put and 
carried, and we went to zigzagging, — expertly 
too, I suppose, since we had profited by the long 
line of surgeons who had preceded us. It was 
not nearly so funny to practise muscular contrac- 
tion myself as it was to be in a safe place and 
watch somebody else contract, and I am free to 
confess to a feeling of great relief the moment J 
was under cover of the spring-house. When a 
person comes to analyze the spiteful whistle of a 
minie ball, and has time to reflect and calculate 
upon the amount of daylight it might let into his 
carcass, it begets peculiar sensations and a desire 
akin to wishing he were not there. 

We had scarcely time to congratulate ourselves, 



26 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

however, as a shell went crashing through the top 
of a tree that stood near by, covering us with 
leaves and bark, bursting as it struck the ground 
just beyond, and setting fire to the loose straw. 
It was rapidly spreading toward one of the tents. 
Acting on the impulse of the moment I seized a 
bucket, dipped it full of water from the spring, 
and started to save the tent, but had not gone ten 
steps beyond the shelter of the house when 
" whiz ! " went a ball so close to my head that I 
dropped, the ball striking the bank beyond. Ben- 
edict thought I was certainly struck and called 
to know if I was killed. Fearing to show myself 
erect, I crawled back on my belly like a snake, 
thankful for the friendly shelter. I told Bene- 
dict I preferred letting the tent burn to exposing 
myself as a mark for sharpshooters. The tent was 
destroyed, but fortunately there was but one man 
in it, a poor fellow who had been brought in a 
short time before the panic, wounded just above 
the ankle, the foot dangling by the integuments. 
He managed to hobble out of the way dragging 
his dangling foot. 

While we were talking about this circumstance 
and locating the direction from which the shell 
came, we were startled by a yelling as if a legion of 
demons had broken loose from the weeds beyond 
the road. Looking up, we were surprised to see a 
brigade of Confederates advancing on our quar- 



A BLOODY FLAG OF TRUCE 27 

ters at the " double-quick." Without a moment's 
thought I ran to the amputation table, and, grab- 
bing up the sheet that we had thrown over it, ran 
out to meet the advancing column, waving this 
impromptu flag of truce. It was rather a bloody 
one, but answered in this case. Advancing to the 
officer in command, who was riding in front, with 
a f evolver in each hand and his bridle reins hang- 
ing loosely over the pommel of the saddle, I 
saluted him without saying a word. 

" What has become of all the men who were 
here? " he asked. 

" All who were able have but a short time since 
retired out of reach of your shells and sharp- 
shooters, sir," I replied. 

" Whose headquarters are they? " 

" It is a general field hospital, sir." 

" We supposed it was some general's head- 
quarters," he replied. 

I then asked, " To whom have I the honor of 
surrendering? " 

" To Col. Scott, of the Tennessee Regi- 
ment of Cavalry, commanding the Brigade 

of Forrest's Cavalry. (They had dismounted to 
make the charge.) 

Again saluting him, I said, " Colonel, you have 
captured a field hospital ; we have a large number 
of wounded, many of whom belong to your own 
army. We are short of hospital supplies. Will 



28 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

you be kind enough, therefore, to request your 
men not to disturb our bedding, as we need all 
wc have ? " 

He answered very kindly, " Nothing shall be 
interfered with, sir," and, turning immediately 

to a captain standing by, said : " Captain , 

detail a guard and give them instructions to allow 
no one to interfere with anything necessary to 
the comfort of the men." 

He then ordered his men to rest at will and they 
soon scattered among the tents in search of 
friends, of whom they found a number. I re- 
marked to one of them : 

" Well, you have gobbled us this time." 

" Yes," he said, very pleasantly, " but it's time 
we were getting some advantage; we've had to 
do all the running heretofore, and it's very dis- 
couraging to have to do all the running." 

While, as I have said, I acted upon first thought 
in regard to advancing to meet the charge, and 
it proved salutary in the end, after it was all over 
and I had time to reflect on it, I was amazed at my 
presumption. I am glad to say that not an article 
necessary for the comfort or welfare of the men 
was molested in any way during the Confederate 
occupancy of the ground, which must have ex- 
tended through several hours, during which time 
" Yank " and " Reb " mingled together in con- 
versation as pleasantly as though there were no 



BLUECOATS TO THE RESCUE 29 

question of difference between them. Each 
seemed studiously to avoid giving expression to 
anything that could be considered offensive. In 
all my subsequent experience as a prisoner among 
the Confederates I always found the rank and file 
(with a few exceptions) to be genuine men and 
generous foes. 

While I was busy in attending the wants of the 
wounded I had not noticed a commotion among 
the men of the Colonel's command, until I heard 
him give the order in hurried tones : " Fall in, 
men ! fall in ! get into line double quick ! " 

Stepping out in front of the tent to ascertain 
the cause, I beheld on top of the hill a line of blue- 
coats advancing to our relief. It made our pulses 
beat quick, notwithstanding the fact that our social 
visit with the enemy had been of rather a pleasant 
nature. The new comers proved to be a reserve 
under Gen. Granger, I think. 

The Confederate Colonel, meanwhile, had fallen 
back into the weeds with his force, without, ap- 
parently, having been discovered by the advan- 
cing column. I noticed five of his men so busily 
engaged in conversation with some of their 
wounded friends, for whom we had made beds 
under a tree, that they had not heard the order 
to fall in. Stepping up to them I asked if they 
would not assist to move their friends into the 
shade. At once they laid down their guns to 



30 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

assist. By the time we had the men well cared for, 
our men were on us. The surprise of the Con- 
federates, when they discovered their dilemma, 
was serio-comic. They did not dare to run, but 
quietly, with undisguised disgust, submitted to 
the inevitable. As they were being marched to 
the rear one of them said to me : " This comes 
from helping you to move those men instead of 
attending to our own business, as we should have 
done." 

As our reserve charged through our quarters 
and were passing on, I approached an officer who 
appeared to be in command of that portion of the 
line, and said : 

" For God's sake, don't take your men in that 
direction, unless you want to slaughter them, be- 
cause it will throw you in the rear of the main 
body of the Rebel army who are driving our men, 
and Forrest's cavalry has just fallen back into the 
weeds, ready to close in behind you and cut you 
off, placing you at their mercy." 

Self-importance was one of the curses of our 
army officers in many instances, and such in- 
telligence, coming from one not under commis- 
sion, was bound to be ignored. The Federal 
column charged on and soon passed out of sight. 
Forrest's men closed leisurely behind them and 
soon disappeared in pursuit. How the springing 
of the trap resulted I never knew, but the roar of 



A FEDERAL DEFEAT 31 

musketry in that direction soon after gave in- 
dication of hard fighting. Some of the Confed- 
erates with whom I talked afterwards claimed 
that the corps was badly cut to pieces. Be that as 
it may, the noise indicated hot work, and I could 
readily believe the enemy's report of the result. 
Our skedaddled surgeons had sufficiently recov- 
ered from their panic to return under cover of the 
reserve and resume work. In stress for room we 
took possession of the Cloud house, on the hill, 
for hospital use; but here, again, our flag drew 
the attention of the Rebel battery, and a number 
of shots were fired at the house, one of which 
passed through it, killing a staff officer who was 
lying wounded on the floor. The Confederates 
claimed afterwards that they mistook the flag, 
which was red, for a battery flag, which would 
have been yellow, — rather a lame excuse. 

The news from the front now became discour- 
aging. A portion of our army was reported to 
have retired from the field, but we could hear 
tremendous fighting in the distance and knew 
from the sound that it was not the irregular firing 
that would have characterized a retreat. Late in 
the afternoon one of our regimental ambulance 
drivers came in with the intelligence that our 
lieutenant-colonel (Durbin Ward) was borne 
from the field, shot through the lungs. He told 
also of the death of Captain Ricketts, one of our 



32 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

noblest officers and purest men. It was quite 
evident that our army was defeated and we were 
certain that we would soon be in the hands of the 
enemy again. We seriously debated whether to 
take advantage of the opportunity and save our- 
selves from being taken prisoners, leaving the 
wounded to their sufferings, or to remain at our 
post regardless of results. We decided to remain. 
In this connection I had quite a talk with our 
chaplain, James H. Gardner, who, at the breaking 
out of the war, was principal of a school at 
Shelbyville, Tennessee, and a preacher of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church North. Refusal to 
unite his interests with those of the South to the 
extent of taking up arms in her defense was suf- 
ficient to make him a marketl man. Freedom of 
tiiought, of speech, and of action, were tolerated 
in the South in those days only as they might be 
subservient to Southern interests, to all of which 
he was antagonistic. He fled for his life, and was 
hunted as a fugitive. After months of anxious 
hiding and dodging he reached our lines soon after 
the battle of Murfreesboro (Stone River), after 
which he was commissioned chaplain and assigned 
to our regiment, reaching us at Triune, Tennessee. 
Being from the same part of Ohio as myself, and 
acquainted with each other by reputation, an in- 
timacy soon struck up between us which warmed 
into close friendship. The discouraging news 



A LOYAL TENNESSEEAN 33 

from the front made him nervous and apprehen- 
sive. He now said to me : 

" I don't know what to do. Here we are ; onr 
army is driven from the field, and these wounded 
men claim our attention and need all our care. 
We are liable to be made prisoners at any mo- 
ment ; some of Forrest's Tennesseeans will recojj- 
nize me, and my life will not be worth a farthing 
in their hands. I believe they would hang me like 
a dog should they find me wearing the garb of a 
Union soldier. Tell me what to do : would I be 
doing wrong to leave these men, even under such 
circumstances? I'll do just as you say." 

Our horses were standing near by, hitched 
under the same tree. I said to him, — 

" So far as these men are concerned, I do not 
know that you can do them any good by remain- 
ing; certainly you could not if the denouement 
should be such as you fear. If you go immedi- 
ately you may be able to make your escape. There 
is your horse. My advice to you is to mount 
without a moment's delay and make for Chatta- 
nooga." 

He mounted his horse and loped away. I did 
not see him again until, after the close of the war, 
I recognized him at the station in Zanesville, Ohio. 
He did not recognize me at first. The privations 
of prison life had left me a wreck beyond recog- 
nition, but all the warmth of his generous nature 



34 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

was thrown into the hearty handshake and greet- 
ing when I made myself known to him. In the few 
minutes we had together we rehearsed personal 
history rapidly. I also had an introduction to his 
bride, who was with him. I indulge in these little 
incidents because I love to cherish the memory 
of my campaign friends. 

So discouraging were the reports that now 
came from the front that it was with intense sat- 
isfaction that we saw the sun disappear and night 
close in around us, as with darkness came an end 
of fighting. Again the smoke settled down into 
the valley and the wounded became quiet. 



CHAPTER III 

SOUTHERN MEN AND SOUTHERN VIEWS 

THIS night there was not that marked still- 
ness which characterized that of the pre- 
vious day. Throug-hout the darkness we could 
hear the noise of the troops moving beyond the 
ridge, — confirmatory evidence of our troops aban- 
doning the field. Several of our nurses took ad- 
vantage of the night and made good their escape; 
our regimental hospital cook, John Harmon, got 
off in this way. Soon after sunrise next morning 
(Monday), two horsemen emerged from the un- 
derbrush in our front and rode leisurely across the 
open space to our quarters, as leisurely dismount- 
ed, tied their horses, and came to our mess, say- 
ing they thought they would come and breakfast 
with us. They proved to be Generals Forrest and 
Cheatham, of Confederate fame. This confirmed 
our fears that we were prisoners. General Cheat- 
ham commanded a division of infantry in Gen. 
Bragg's army and was a leader of no mean note. 
General Forrest was a commander of cavalry of 
great fame but rather irregular in his manner of 

35 



36 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

warfare. The bearing of the two men, as they 
sat with us around our mess-table, was a true in- 
dex to the character of each. 

General Cheatham enjoyed several cups of 
coffee with a gusto that evinced unfeigned satis- 
faction, and spoke of the pleasure he took in a 
cup of choice Rio. General Forrest, with all the 
superciliousness of an offended mogul, simulated 
contempt for such luxuries. 

" Not," he said, " but that I am fond of coffee, 
and the like, but because we have been deprived 
of them by the iron heel of a tyrannizing govern- 
ment and a damnable, inhuman blockade, that cuts 
us off from intercourse with the outside world, 
and thus deprives us of them. I scorn " (his tone 
had to be heard to be appreciated) " to indulge in 
them until I can do it in an established Confed- 
eracy, whose independence has been won by the 
strong right arm of Southern chivalry, and when 
we can flaunt our flag in the face of our oppres- 
sors, a free and independent South." 

General Cheatham laughed a dry kind of laugh 
and passed his cup for more coffee, denoting the 
very sensible conviction that the present is all that 
we can justly claim of life, and that a bird in the 
hand is worth countless multitudes in the bush. 

During the progress of the meal the conversa- 
tion very naturally turned on the day's figbt and 
its results. General Cheatham said : 



GENERAL CHEATHAM 37 

" Gentlemen, I must say that I had to admire 
the bravery and fortitude with which your men 
fought, and the doggedness with which they re- 
pelled our charges, fighting in many cases until 
they were literally shot down in their tracks. 
They fought well, gentlemen ; they fought well ; 
no men could have done better; all the glory we 
can claim is that w-e hold the field, and against 
such a foe it is a glory. But we hold it only by 
force of numbers, and our glory is dearly bought ; 
our loss is fearful, — equal to, if not greater than, 
yours. Yes, we hold the field at a fearful sac- 
rifice. We had the men, and General Bragg is- 
sued an order to all his division commanders to 
press your lines in double column, and press you 
so closely that you could not make your artillery 
efifective, and to keep our front column full we did 
so, but 'twas at a fearful cost of life, — fearful, 
fearful, fearful ! Why, the men seemed to melt 
away; in many places the dead were piled, or 
looked as though they had been mowed down in 
swaths." 

It seemed to touch him as he dwelt upon the 
carnage, and recalled the battle scenes with an 
emotion that forced us to acknowledge him a 
brave man, honest in his conviction of the justness 
of the cause for which he fought. 

General Forrest was full of braggadocio; they 
had given the Yankees a terrible whipping and 



38 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

had routed them, demorahzed, from the field. 
They had captured an immense stand of arms ; our 
army was in full and disorganized retreat, and so 
utterly demoralized it would take months to re- 
organize it, if it could be reorganized at all. He 
intended to have his command in Chattanooga 
that night, then advance on Knoxville, and would 
push the Yankee army to the Ohio River by Sat- 
urday night. He must hurry up and get his boys 
on the wing, in order to complete the victory, — 
and as he rode away he left on our minds the im- 
pression of a man without heart or soul. 

The truth is, at the battle of Chickamauga the 
Confederates were as badly whipped as were the 
Northern forces, and if it had not been for the 
unfortunate misconstruing of an order, by which 
Wood's division was taken from the centre, creat- 
ing a gap and cutting our army in two, the battle 
would certainly have resulted differently. I heard 
General Cheatham and several of the Confederate 
commanders say that up to that time the battle 
was in doubt, and that when the movement was 
made it was so inexplicable to them that they 
feared to take advantage of it, lest it should turn 
out to be a cunningly laid trap; but as soon as 
they became convinced it was a blunder, they had 
no more fears of the result, as it turned the whole 
tide in their favor. Had it not been for the stub- 
born stand made by the heroic band under that 



A BRITISH CONFEDERATE 39 

noble hero, General George H. Thomas, it cer- 
tainly would have resulted in the utter routing 
of the Union army. Well is he called the " Rock 
of Chickamauga." 

As quite a valuable amount of hospital stores 
had been captured at our hospital, a detail was 
made to take charge of them, and the prisoners 
were put under the supervision of Major Clare of 
General Bragg's staff. I think he was from 
Montgomery, Alabama. We found him to be a 
gentleman and he entered freely into conversation 
with the prisoners. He would say, when talking 
with us on any of the issues of the war : 

" Now, gentlemen, I want you to give your 
opinions on these things as freely as you would if 
you were around your own camp-fires. Don't let 
your views be biased by the fact that you are 
prisoners." 

Associated with him was a young ensign from 
the British navy, a Mr. Burns, who had been 
granted leave of absence from Her Majesty's 
service that he might offer his sword to the Con- 
federate cause, aching, I suppose, to have his 
name emblazoned alongside Lafayette's in Ameri- 
can history. He had succeeded in running the 
blockade at Charleston a few months before, and 
for his zeal was appointed to General Bragg's 
staff with a commission as captain. He was 
chuckful of conceit and had a lordly contempt 



40 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

for anything not English. The major said of 
him, "■ He is a good kind of fellow, spends his 
gold lavishly, and is a tip-top good mess-fellow 
on that account." He was an enthusiastic advo- 
cate of Southern rights and bitterly denounced the 
United States government for presuming to re- 
sist the efforts of the Southerners to establish a 
government of their own according to their own 
peculiar ideas. 

The Confederacy at this time was very much 
buoyed up by the prospect of England's recogni- 
tion of its belligerent rights, and felt confident 
that the news of the reverses of our army at 
Chickamauga would have a tendency to hasten it. 
In truth, it did look as though that day was about 
to dawn upon them. Tn this feeling Ensign Burns 
heartily shared. In conversation one day with 
Major Clare and the ensign in regard to the prob- 
ability of such a thing as England's interference, 
the major asked me : 

" What, in your opinion, would be the effect, 
upon the North, of such interference on the part 
of England?" 

I said it would be the best thing that could 
happen ; it would be a God-send to *,he North and 
death to the Confederacy. 

" Why? " he asked in astonishment. 

" Because upon the question of war with Eng- 
land there would be a solid North, and that 



ENGLAND'S POSITION 41 

element that now retards and opposes the prosecu- 
tion of the war from sympathy for you would be 
arrayed as an army of invasion that in four weeks 
would overrun Canada and be made harmless as 
Southern sympathizers. The result would be that 
you would be no better off, and England would 
soon not have a foothold on American soil, as we 
would take Canada so quickly it would make their 
heads swim." 

The ensign scouted the idea as grossly fanatical 
and impossible. Clare said that that was a phase 
of the case that had never entered his mind be- 
fore, and it looked plausible, though he thought it 
would have the effect of forcing the North to rec- 
ognize the independence of the South. 

The men who were left under Clare to guard us 
were a portion of John Morgan's command. One 
night, as I stepped out of the tent, I noticed the 
guard reading a letter by the light of the fire. See- 
ing me, he handed it to me and asked if its con- 
tents were correct. I recognized the letter as one 
that I had received from Ohio a little while before. 
giving me a description of the raid and capture 
of Morgan, in which the writer said : " Morgan 
is now safely lodged in the Ohio Penitentiary, his 
head shaved, and wearing stripes, which is a 
p-reat deal better than he deserves." I told him 

o 

that Morgan was undoubtedly in the penitentiary, 
but as to shaving his head and dressing him in 



4» A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

stripes, the garb of the common prisoner, I pre- 
sumed that that was not correct, though the writer 
might have inferred so from the fact of his being 
an inmate of that institution. 

" Well," he said, " I am one of Morgan's men, 
and it would not do to tell the boys that Morgan 
was treated in that way." 

" Now," I said, " I would like to know how you 
came into possession of that letter, which, being 
my property, I know you have no right to." 

" Well," he said, " one of the boys gave it to me 
a while ago." 

" Then," I rejoined, " one of the boys has evi- 
dently been where he had no right to be," and, 
going into the tent, I found that they had stolen 
my valise. It contained my clothing, papers, and 
letters. I tried to have them return a number of 
photographs, but failed. 

I took advantage of an especially dark night to 
get to the boxes containing our regimental hos- 
pital drugs, as they had not been disturbed since 
we unloaded them. I knew just where to put 
my hands on over twenty ounces of quinine, a 
drug that at that time, in the South, commanded 
the fabulous sum of $250 an ounce. I very soon 
diminished the value of their capture that much. 
I then got one of the nurses, and we gathered up 
all the guns we could find and put them hors de 



CAUSES OF THE WAR 43 

combat by giving them a twist in the fork of a 
tree. One of the regimental mail-carriers left his 
mail-sack with us on the first day of the fight. It 
contained a number of letters for the North ; these 
we destroyed by burning them one at a time in 
our tent so as not to attract attention. 

It was sometimes quite amusing, as well as in- 
structive, to hear Southerners of the upper class 
conversing about the causes of the war, as well 
as the object of the leaders in forcing secession on 
the South. One gentleman especially, from 
Charleston, South Carolina, who spent several 
days at our quarters, held views so entirely dif- 
ferent from any I had before heard, and expressed 
them so candidly and unreservedly, making them 
appear so reasonable withal, that they seemed to 
me to contain the solution of the whole Southern 
problem. He was evidently a man of high mental 
culture and a Huguenot by descent, as I heard 
him tell a gentleman with whom he was con- 
versing. His dress was that of a civilian from 
the higher walks of life, and by his deportment 
he conveyed the impression of being a man who 
had never sniffed plebeian air. In answer to a 
question asked by one of the surgeons, he ex- 
pressed himself as follows: 

" You-all at the North have been taught to 
look upon this war as a contest inaugurated in 



44 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the interest of slavery, — on the side of the South 
for its perpetuation ; on the side of the North for 
its suppression and overthrow : but, gentlemen, 
that is only a phase growing out of the war itself, 
and is secondary. The war is not a question of 
to-day or yesterday, or of Lincoln's election as 
President, though that was opportune as an ex- 
cuse. For more than forty years the South has 
been preparing for it gradually. True, the negro 
was the mighty lever in the hands of our states- 
men and orators, in moving the mudsills of the 
South to espouse the Southern cause, for which 
they have nothing in common with us. They 
were made to believe that you-all were encroach- 
ing on the rights of the South, on their rights, by 
fighting to free cjur slaves. Why, there never was 
a more absurd argument bearing its own lie on 
its face, if they had only stopped to consider. It 
was an imposition on ignorance, but such is the 
power of infatuation. Go to nine-tenths of our 
men and ask them what they are fighting for, and 
they will tell you for their rights. Ask them what 
those rights are, and they will tell you slavery, 
although they never owned a slave in their lives, 
and in many cases are even below the slave in in- 
telligence and culture; for the negro, from the 
relation he sustains to his master, is necessarily 
brought more or less within the circle of refine- 



A WAR FOR ARISTOCRACY 45 

ment and culture, and thus, if he is an intelligent 
negro, becomes more or less cultured, while the 
poor whites, from their social inferiority, no 
matter what their character, cannot avail them- 
selves of such advantages. Hence their children 
are reared in ignorance, in many cases worse than 
the negroes. Yet they are firmly of the belief that 
you-all are trampling on their rights. Nonsense ! 
our leaders won't tell you so; our wealthy slave- 
holders — the ones most interested — won't tell you 
so, if they are candid. They will tell you that 
what we want is an aristocracy. That's what we 
are fighting for. That's what our training and 
mode of life demands. That's what we will have, 
and nothing short of that will satisfy the ambi- 
tion of Southern chivalry. We may not reach it 
in this struggle, but we will train our young men 
to work for it in the years to come, to reach it at 
any sacrifice and get control of prominent places 
in the government, as we had under Buchanan, 
and shape affairs to this end." 

It seemed to me that if these doctrines could be 
preached to those despised mudsills who com- 
posed the bulk of the Southern army and were 
giving their lives to the cause, it would have 
been more potent in disarming the South than 
marshalled hosts and bristling bayonets. Though 
the ignorance of the average mudsill was what 



46 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Nasby would call " trooly sublime," it did not 
seem to me to merit such base ingratitude; and, 
after that gentleman's exposition of the casus 
belli, " Southern rights " looked to me like a 
refuge of lies, hideous and deformed. 



CHAPTER IV 



GOING INTO DURANCE 



S we were held on the battlefield, or rather 
at the hospital, ten or twelve days, until ar- 
rangements could be made to exchange the 
wounded, we had an opportunity of going over a 
part of the ground over which our boys had 
fought so stubbornly and bravely. If there had 
been nothing there but the broken bushes, scarred 
trees, and trodden grass to indicate the severity 
of the engagement, these in themselves would have 
been sufficient. The trunks of the trees were 
lacerated and scarred from the ground to the top ; 
here and there huge limbs had been cut off by can- 
non-shot, and in places the ground torn into fur- 
rows indicated the site of a battery. All these, with 
the scattered fragments of exploded shells and nu- 
merous solid balls, were sufficient evidence. But 
we had far more significant and painful tokens, 
in the sad, sickening sight of our dead scattered 
over the field where they had fallen, in many 
cases naked, generally partially stripped of their 
clothing, and all with their pockets turned inside 
out. The army cormorant had paid his respects 

47 



48 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

to each. Decomposition had already set in, so 
that none were recognizable, but were repulsive 
in their putrescence. Mark the contrast, and 
show me the humanity : the Confederate dead had 
all been carefully hunted up and given decent 
burial ; but not so the corpses of the " Lincoln 
hirelings." Their carcasses might lie there and 
rot, and their bones blanch in the noonday sun. 
No Confederate spade should dig the trench, no 
hand be raised to give them Christian burial. 
Shame, shame, boasted chivalry! That same 
army had forgotten how many times, perhaps, 
these same boys, now rotting on the battle-ground 
of Chickamauga, had assisted in raising the mound 
over Confederate dead left scattered on other 
battlefields in Yankee hands; but now — the only 
time in the history of Bragg's army when they 
had a chance to show like respect to our dead — 
they had not the magnanimity to do so, and not 
until our men had again performed a like cere- 
mony for them at Lookout Mountain and Mission 
Ridge, and had regained the field of Chicka- 
mauga, did those blanched bones find a grave, 
and then it was by the hands of their victorious 
friends. 

Near where our regiment went into line on the 
first morning of the fight, stood a log house of the 
old-fashioned two-part style, connected by a porch 
or open space. It was occupied by an old lady 



BADLY SCARED WOMEN 49 

and her two daughters. Here a number of 
wounded had found shelter, bunking down on the 
floor as they could make room. During the can- 
nonading a solid shot from one of our batteries, 
after passing through a log smoke-house in the 
yard, came crashing through the door into the 
room where the men were lying, striking the floor 
under the drawn-up knees of one of the men and 
passing out through the side of the house just 
high enough to miss the men lying next the wall, 
—certainly a very remarkable escape, as it could 
not have struck at any other part and missed a 
man, and not then if he had not drawn up his 
knees to rest his hands. The experience of the 
old lady and her girls must have been of rather an 
exciting character, as the battle raged around 
them. I will give her description of it as she 
gave it to me herself a few days after, when we 
went to remove the wounded men from her house. 
She said : 

" On the first mawnin', when you-all came 
marching up the road thar, and stopped over in 
the lot, I told the gearels we or'ter go away from 
hyar; but we did not know whar to go to, so we 
thought we mought about as well stay whar we 
ware, as maybe thar wouldn't be no font no way, 
but, my souls ! wasn't thar ? Why, purty soon the 
guns begin firen', and the men: begin to holer'n. 
The gearels they crawled under the bed a 



50 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

screamen', and I just had to sit still and hold my 
head in my apron, it just plumb deafened me, the 
noise did. The first thing we knowed, our yard 
was full of soljers a shootin' as fast like as they 
could. I reckon we ware three of the scardest wim- 
men you ever sot your eyes on, if you had seen us. 
We just broke right outer the house and struck 
fur the timber as hard as we could run, but we 
couldn't run no way, 'pears like, without we run 
right into the font. It just 'peared like they ware 
foughtin everywhar, and we just turned round 
and cut plumb straight for home and crawled 
under the house; we just expected to be killed 
every minit. We crawled right under among the 
men, — thar ware lots of 'em under thar ; and thar 
we stayed laying just as flat on the ground as we 
could, with our faces covered up in our aprons, 
until they had done gone past, and then we crawled 
out'n. My souls ! such a sight as thar was I 
never dreamed of before. I just plumb didn't 
know the place no mo'. The fences was all broke 
down, and dead and wounded men ware layin* 
around hyar just thick, — 'peared like thar was five 
dead men layin' out'n the yard, and fo mo' out 
thar on the road, and a whole lot out beyond the 
crib, and down thar in the lot. Poor fellows, 
some of them lay thar just like they was restin', 
thar eyes open wide and smilin' like, and they 
stone dead. It was just the awfulest time I ever 



A REMARKABLE SHOT 51 

seed, it made me heart-sick, so I just had to sit 
right down and cry, and the wounded — some of 
them had crawled into the house and was layin' on 
the flo'. 'Twas just the awfulest time I ever 
seed, and I won't forget it as long as I live." 

I noticed a number of graves in the garden, one 
with a headstone marking the grave of an officer ; 
as there were but three Yankee dead that I could 
see, I judged they must have been mostly Con- 
federate dead the old lady saw, especially as they 
had all been decently buried save the three excep- 
tions. As an example of the force of a cannon- 
shot, not far from the house stood a tall tree per- 
haps sixteen inches through at the butt. This 
had been cut off about twenty feet from the ground 
by a shell, the top giving every appearance of 
having jumped clear of the stump, striking the 
ground in an upright position. 

Arrangements having been made for the ex- 
change of the wounded, a train of our ambulances 
came to carry them to our lines. I had given con- 
siderable attention to a captain — I think his name 
was Carr — belonging to an Illinois regiment, who 
had been hit in the leg and foot by a fragment of 
shell, making a very ugly wound, the flesh being 
torn from the leg, and the missile passing through 
the foot at the instep, crushing the bone. He was 
so grateful for the attention I had given him 
that when he came to be moved he proffered me 



52 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

his watch as a recompense. I told him I was 
glad if I had been of any benefit to him, but, as 
we were likely to be sent to Richmond, most likely 
the watch would be taken from me as contraband 
of war (subsequent events proved my predictions 
to be correct) ; but if, when he got through the 
lines, he would write to my folks and tell them I 
was a prisoner and well, he would confer a favor 
on me and relieve my friends of much anxiety. He 
promised to do so, and I found he had been true 
to his promise, for when I returned from prison, 
they showed me the letter. But the grateful fellow 
had given me such an exalted name I could hardly 
recognize myself as being the one referred to. In- 
stances of this kind are the flowers that spring up 
to beautify the pathway of life. 

Major Clare very kindly gave us permis- 
sion to write letters to our friends and send 
them through the lines by the ambulance train. 
We put them in charge of the surgeon who was 
to accompany the train, — an Armenian who had 
been sent by his people to be educated in the 
United States. Having chosen the medical pro- 
fession, and finished his course about the time the 
war broke out, he concluded that the field would 
be the place to get a practical knowledge of sur- 
gery, so he offered his services and received his 
commission as assistant surgeon in the regular 
army. I have often thought how mysteriously 



STARTING FOR PRISON 53 

and with what wisdom the Almighty rules affairs 
pertaining to the spread of his spiritual kingdom. 
Now, if that poor Armenian, instead of being 
sent through the lines, had been suffered to feel 
and see the hideous deformity of the Christian 
spirit that ruled in Dixie, and had lived through it 
all, and returned to Armenia to tell his story, 
the missionaries of the Cross might never have 
gained a foot-hold in his country. It looked to 
me as unjust in our government not to have made 
arrangements for all the noncombatants to be ex- 
changed, instead of suffering us to go into the 
" prison pens of the South." 

Having got all of the wounded loaded into the 
ambulances, we bade adieu to Cloud's Spring, the 
scene of so much suffering, and took up our line 
of march, the wounded for Chattanooga, we for 
Chickamauga, a station from which point we were 
to take cars for Richmond, Virginia. On our way 
to the station we passed through the pioneer corps 
of the Confederate army. As we were trudging 
along afoot, one of the guards who was on horse- 
back told me to get up behind him and ride, a 
courtesy of which I gladly availed myself, and 
we jogged on together. He was not feeling well, 
and as I had some brandy in my canteen I told 
him to drink some of it. In return for this he 
gave me a silver ten-cent piece, which served me 
a very good turn when sick myself in prison. 



54 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

While we were waiting at the depot for a train, 
a very fine-looking artillery officer came riding 
along the line, inquiring if there were any Ohio 
soldiers there; he wanted to learn something of 
a brother who was in the Federal army. On in- 
quiry we learned that that brother was Granville 
Moody, the " Fighting Parson." Brother against 
brother! At the railroad we were reinforced by 
the surgeons and by help from Crawfish Springs 
Hospital, giving us a combined force of sixty-two 
surgeons and assistant surgeons, besides eight or 
ten hospital stewards. From the station we could 
distinguish the dim outline of Lookout Mountain 
looming up in the twilight against the sky, the 
fires of the Rebel camps being plainly visible on 
its summit and sides, while camp-fires which we 
presumed to be those of our friends could be seen 
in the valley below around Chattanooga, the ob- 
jective point of the campaign, — and it in the pos- 
session of our army, notwithstanding our reverses 
at Chickamauga. 

Soon after dark we were ordered aboard the 
train, which was composed principally of ordinary 
freight cars. As there was not room in these for 
all, the surgeons and commissioned officers were 
put into a passenger coach. By using a little cheek 
I insinuated myself among them, and secured first- 
class accommodations for war times. We found 
the car dimly lighted by a single tallow-dip candle 



''AS ITHERS SEE US" 55 

in the front end, around which the few passengers 
— all Confederate soldiers, or, at least, all men — 
had collected like moths, so that they did not know 
really that we were Yankees, if, indeed, they 
noticed us at all as we came in from the rear plat- 
form. 

Their conversation was carried on in animated 
style without interruption, sometimes consider- 
ably to our edification, though not entirely to 
our justification. Especially was this the case 
in the conversation of two of them who had 
gotten into quite a warm discussion upon the rel- 
ative merits and demerits of Yankees as a class, 
in which we were forced to take some pretty hard 
rubs and " see oursel's as ithers see us." We had 
to acknowledge one as our champion, from the 
fact that he had espoused our cause and was try- 
ing to prove that there were just as good, honest 
men in the whole Lincoln army as there were 
among the Confederates, and that, as a class, they 
would stand comparison. The opposition con- 
tended there was not an honest man in the whole 
Lincoln army, but that they were a set of thieves 
and blacklegs, from " old Lincoln," the comman- 
der-in-chief, down to the lowest private in the 
ranks, and this assertion he attempted to prove 
by a long story of how he, a green youth from 
North Carolina, who " had never travelled much," 
had been neatly swindled by a pair of bunco men 



56 A CAPTIVE OP WAR 

in Philadelphia and reHeved of some three 
hundred and fifty dollars. When he drew the con- 
clusion, from his adventure, — " No, sir ! you need 
not talk to me of gentlemen among them, for / 
know them by experience, and from that very day 
I have been a rank secessionist," the roar that 
went up from our party would have to be heard to 
be appreciated. We had never before had even 
the pleasure of knowing the locality of the " orig- 
inal secessionist," but now that we had him be- 
fore us, we could definitely point him out and say, 
" Behold the man." This incident was a striking 
illustration of the smallness of the point on which 
the destiny of a nation may be balanced. 

It had now become quite dark, our engme 
steamed up, the whistle blew, and we were soon 
rattling along " beyond the lines," prisoners of 
war in Dixie. It was well we could not unveil the 
future and see the misery and horror that were 
in store for us. As it was, we confidently ex- 
pected that a few weeks at farthest would see us 
again safely quartered with our regiment, but we 
based too much on our being noncombatants, as 
the sequel shows. 



CHAPTER V 
"away down south in dixie!" 

OUR advent among the natives seemed to 
meet general approval and to give a cor- 
responding degree of satisfaction. That portion 
of the Confederacy seemed to be on its " high 
heels/* and we were welcomed as a kind of first- 
fruits of Bragg's bagging. It seemed as though 
it was a fulfilment of a promise he had made them 
a long time before and had never been able to 
keep until now. Even the young ladies from the 
classic walls of Marietta's French seminary, who 
came dancing down the slope that led from the 
school to the railroad, seemed solicitous in regard 
to Gen. Bragg's health, and sung out : " How is 
Mr. Bragg? " Then, brandishing small stilettos at 
us they would cry, " Oh, you detestable Yanks ! 
You Lincoln hirelings! So Mr. Bragg has got 
you at last, has he? Good for Mr. Bragg! " 

We really began to think ourselves, considering 
the number of times we had known Mr. Bragg to 
abandon the field without bagging any game, that 
our delegation was pretty good for Mr. Bragg. 
In due time we reached Atlanta, and were congrat- 

57 



58 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ulating ourselves that we had safely run the 
Bragg gauntlet, when, as we filed out of the depot 
on our way to the stockade, an old lady, hearing 
the confusion, but not clearly discerning the mul- 
titude, adjusted her glasses astride her nose, and 
then, taking in the situation at a glance, shrieked 
out, as she shook her fists at us : 

" Yi, yi ! he, he! and you seed Mr. Bragg, did 
you ? How's Mr. Bragg ? " 

"Damn Bragg!" said one of the men, whose 
patience had become exhausted by the monotony 
of the thing. " Damn Bragg and the whole Con- 
federacy with him; who in hell cares for Bragg? " 

" Hi, yi, yi ! " chimed in the old lady, and we 
marched on to the " bull-pen.'' 

•There was nothing very imposing or awe- 
inspiring about its external appearance. We were 
made to pay an entrance fee at the gate, of can- 
teens, pocket-knives, blankets, tin cups, etc. As 
the fellow stripped me of my canteen I told him 
he had better confiscate that, as it contained a su- 
perior article of Yankee brandy. " Don't use 
such stuff," he said with contempt. But I noticed 
that he watched very closely where the canteen 
fell when he threw it on the pile, and seemed care- 
ful to have it fall " right side up with care," — a 
tender solicitude that belied his contempt for the 
article. While they were bringing us into line 
preparatory to stripping us, a voice called my 



IN A REBEL STOCKADE 59 

name from beyond the gate, saying : " You'd bet- 
ter throw your knife over here if you don't want 
to lose it ; the ' Johnnies ' are short on pocket- 
knives, and they will take it, sure." Luckily I 
had two and turned over the poorest one. This 
was our first " picking." On getting inside I 
found the voice came from Bill Comstock, of 
Company K, of my regiment. 

This was our first experience in a rebel prison 
stockade. We found quite a number of wounded 
who had been sent back from the front instead of 
being exchanged. Whatever became of them I 
never knew, but they must have had a serious time 
if they remained prisoners long. The pen was 
pretty well filled, so much so that we found some 
difficulty in finding room under shelter to spread 
our beds. As I had been deprived of my blanket 
and rubber at the gate, in common with all un- 
commissioned soldiers, I would have found bed- 
making a mere farce had not Dr. Benedict, our 
assistant surgeon, kindly shared his blanket with 
me, and we made out very well. There we saw 
our first picture of Southern capacity for diabol- 
ism. It gave us an idea of what they were capa- 
ble of doing in inhumanity, and substantiated the 
stories we had heard so often from the lips of East 
Tennesseeans when they came as refugees to our 
camps in the early days of the war, — stories which 
we then thought were tinged with an over-inten- 



6o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

sity prompted by feelings of malice. We could 
not then understand how they could be possible, 
though subsequent experience proved to us that 
they were terrible truths. One such case was that 
of an old man who had been outspoken in his de- 
nunciation of the secession movement in its in- 
fancy, and had refused to give it any support or 
countenance. He had been imprisoned early in 
the war, but succeeded in making his escape. By 
means of bloodhounds he was hunted down and 
retaken, and to prevent a recurrence of escape was 
put in irons and chained to his room, in which 
condition he had been confined a number of 
months when we saw him. His unkempt locks, 
as white as snow, his tottering limbs and sunken 
eyes, showed but too plainly that the days of his 
incarceration were nearly over; that he would 
soon be beyond the reach of the venom of his en- 
emies. 

After a few days' rest we were again put aboard 
the cars, and " On to Richmond " was the cry. If 
we had not been prisoners and our future uncer- 
tain, this trip through Georgia would have been 
more pleasant than otherwise. We were occupy- 
ing cattle-cars and had aboard a Roman Catholic 
chaplain, an Irishman, whose hatred to anything 
" secesh " was as intense as the Devil's hatred for 
holy water; his blood fairly boiled at the insults 
offered by the natives. We must have been the 



''THE CHURCH MILITANT" 6i 

first delegation to pass over this road, and our 
train seemed to have been heralded; we found a 
crowd awaiting us at every station, anxious to get 
a sight of the Yanks. Of course, each gathering 
v/ould have its remarks to make and innuendoes 
to fling at us, and these would raise the chaplain's 
ire to a perfect frenzy. He would shake his fists at 
the crowd through the open sides of the car in a 
most defiant manner, a proceeding which would 
only provoke more chaff. Then he would gnash 
his teeth, froth at the mouth, stamp his feet, and 
jump up and down in his rage, while his eyes 
fairly spoke annihilation. A wild beast at bay 
could not have shown more venom in its actions. 
The train was generally beset at all prominent 
points by " pie-venders," as we styled them, 
though they generally had cakes, rye coffee, chest- 
nuts, etc. These — generally boys and women 
with an eye to business — kept civil tongues, as the 
prisoners were their best customers. The negroes, 
gathered on the outskirts of the crowd, seemed to 
eye us with feelings of awe and admiration. At 
one place where we stopped a tight board fence 
seven or eight feet in height extended alongside 
of the track, and from behind this we could hear 
the subdued voices of a number of persons in ear- 
nest conversation. Pretty soon one woolly head, 
and then another, slowly appeared above the 
fence, until their eyes became visible, when down 



62 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

they went like dipper ducks dodging bullets. Then 
we heard them say : 

" Why, dey looks just like any odder white 
folks ; don't got no horns at all." 

Becoming more and more assured, they finally 
ventured the question. 

" Is you-uns Yankees? " 

When they found that we were, their minds 
seemed relieved of a heavy burden, and we 
found by inquiry that these poor creatures had 
been made to believe that we were just such a 
race of people as Darwin had been hunting for, 
having tails and horns. Indeed, all the people 
apparently expected to see a semi-barbarous crew, 
from whose clutches they had better keep at a safe 
distance. If we could only have improvised a 
pair of horns and a tail for our Irish chaplain and 
let him spring out among them, there would have 
resulted a scattering similar to that caused by a 
hawk sweeping down on a covey of partridges, 
especially if he had been in one of his fits of 
frenzy. 

Arriving at Millen late in the evening, and hav- 
ing to change cars, we were quartered for the 
night in a warehouse close to the railroad. We 
had to buy our food from the citizens, as the Con- 
federacy had not issued any to us as yet, since our 
leaving Atlanta. Next morning, however, they 
issued us cooked rations. 



AUGUSTA 63 

At Augusta we spent several hours before 
crossing into South CaroHna. We were rather fa- 
vorably impressed with the city ; its broad streets, 
shaded by a row of trees on either ^ide, gave it an 
appearance at once captivating and elegant. A 
Sabbath-like silence seemed to pervade the place ; 
it3 streets were nearly deserted, and no clamorous 
crowds gathered around us to satisfy their curi- 
osity. We enjoyed our several hours' rest on the 
outskirts of the town unmolested. It may have 
been owing to the hour of the day, as we were 
there about noon. 

I was informed by a citizen, with whom I after- 
ward became acquainted, that the business of the 
town, before the war, was carried on mostly by 
Northern men, and that merchants of Augusta 
preferred Northern help to their own people on 
account of the greater energy with which they en- 
gaged in their work. I expressed my surprise at 
this, but he frankly admitted that the youth of the 
South who by education were qualified to carry 
on business were, by their mode of life and habits, 
unfitted for the work, were not sought after for 
such places, and seldom sought them themselves. 

After we crossed on to the " sacred soil " of 
South Carolina, we were taken three or four miles 
out and side-tracked, to give us an opportunity to 
prepare our rations for dinner, which we did on a 
bluff overlooking the railroad. Being told that 



64 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

we would likely remain here until toward night, 
we amused ourselves as best we could, not being 
under very strict guard. A beautiful clear stream 
offered an inviting place to bathe, of which we 
availed ourselves; nearly three weeks as prison- 
ers, and a part of that time aboard cars and sleep- 
ing in warehouses and shanties, had rendered ab- 
lutions not only acceptable, but necessary. We 
also had time to rinse our socks and shirts and dry 
them in the sunshine. 

About sundown we boarded the train. Dr. 
Benedict and I, having secured an armful apiece 
of cedar boughs, spread them on the floor and 
with his blanket laid over them made an excellent 
bed, which secured us a good night's rest. Sun- 
rise next morning found us at Columbia. We 
could not see much of the city and were not per- 
mitted to get off the cars, only stopping for a few 
moments for a clear track. 

Our passage through the turbulent State of 
South Carolina was not marked with any special 
interest. The swamps and rivers, low sandy 
lands, pine woods and live oaks, their boughs 
('.raped with long pendant moss, while they 
1 rought their share of novelty to our Northern 
minds, did not imbue us with any special feeling 
of reverence, that we should fall down and wor- 
sliip her " sacred soil " and remove our shoes from 
our feet because of its sacredness. Certainly the 



IN THE TAR-HEEL STATE 65 

country had its charms, but they did not realize 
our ideas of Paradise by any means. We did ad- 
mire the dainty beauty of some of her daughters, 
but there was a pecuHar forty-five-degree angHng 
of the nose perceptible in those we saw when on 
exhibition as " Yanks," a peculiar flipping of the 
dress skirt, and defiant poise of the head, that we 
could not some way harmonize with our idea of 
angelic beings. 

The cars moved on, and soon carried us among 
the pines of North Carolina, a name always asso- 
ciated with tar and tar-making in our schoolboy 
days. As we passed through we wondered why 
our old geographies had not added persimmons to 
the chief products of the State. We found the 
scenery more diversified than in South Carolina, 
making our ride much less monotonous. The 
train took a very roundabout way, without stop- 
ping, by way of Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh 
and Weldon to Petersburg, Virginia, at which 
point we arrived in the night. Leaving the train, 
we filed up one of the principal streets and camped 
near the river north of town. Considering its 
proximity to the seat of war the city presented an 
unusually quiet appearance. As we marched 
through it that night not a light was visible in any 
of the houses, and not a person, aside from our 
own party, could be seen on the streets. The 
doleful clank, clank, clank of our feet on the stone 



66 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

pavement sounded back from the dark, blank 
walls of the buildings with an emptiness that 
mig-ht fitly have represented a midnight visit to 
the exhumed streets of Pompeii, or some other 
dead city of the past. 

We were not given much time for rest; long 
before day we were groping our way through a 
dense fog to the train. We supposed this night 
move was a piece of military precaution, as Rich- 
mond was only about two hours' run distant, and 
our route would necessarily pass through their 
lines of defense, and too much Yankee observa- 
tion behind the scenes was not advisable. The 
train ran slowly, and in the dim, foggy light of 
early morning we recognized that we were once 
more in the region of military operations. Ex- 
tensive earthworks and lines of defense were to be 
seen at all commanding points, and the deso- 
lating footprints of war were unmistakable. Few- 
troops, however, were visible along the line of the 
road, being too early for camps to be astir. 

About two hours' run brought us to Manches- 
ter, a manufacturing village on the south bank of 
the James River, opposite Richmond ; before us 
ran the swift waters of the James, and beyond, 
wrapped in the mists and quiet of early morning, 
lay Richmond, the great bone of contention, the 
seat of Southern empire and its stronghold. As 
we crossed the bridge we had a view of Belle Is- 



RICHMOND 67 

land, a low, sandy island in the river at the head 
of the rapids, nature's barrier against tide water. 
It had already become noted as a place of torment 
for prisoners, yet when we had read these reports 
in the papers, we were disposed to receive them 
with a measure of allowance, as the overdrawn 
pictures of Northern fanaticism. But as it ap- 
peared that morning, half hidden by the river 
mists that settled over it, our eyes beheld enough 
to convince us that its reputation was well mer- 
ited. The sight filled us with dread ; even at that 
early hour the hum of voices from the prisoners 
could be plainly heard. What an appeal for mercy 
it must have been, lying there in plain view of 
Richmond, of her Capitol halls, from the windows 
of which it must have been plainly visible; in 
sight of many of her public buildings, her private 
residences, her Christian churches and everyday 
life, — a perpetual reminder of Confederate inhu- 
manity and barbarism. Ah, no ! I do not wonder 
the South wants byegones to be forgotten, and 
would forget the dastardly acts she performed in 
the name of Liberty and " Southern Rights." 
Neither do I wonder that Cain sought to hide 
from the face of the Almighty and deny that he 
was his brother's keeper. The curse of Cain will 
hang over the South until the last mover in se- 
cession is laid away for his final rest; and as 
long as any survive, the prison pens of the South 



68 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

should be kept fresh in their memory. It is just 
that they should" be : yea, more ! it would be but 
just that the South should be taxed to pension 
those whose lives have been rendered years of 
suffering by the treatment received as prisoners 
in their hands. 



CHAPTER VI 

LIBBY AND PEMBERTON PRISONS 

WE reached Richmond on the nth of Octo- 
ber, the train stopping at the crossing of 
Cary Street, down which we were marched to the 
right. On the left-hand side, some distance down, 
we passed a large brick building with barred win- 
dows, from which squalid, tattered forms peered 
at us. Heavens ! we thought, is such the fate to 
which we are so quietly marching? One of the 
guards informed us this was " Castle Thunder," 
the Bastile of Richmond, the dread of Confed- 
erate soldier as well as of Yankee prisoner, for 
here they confined military offenders from their 
own army as well as " Yanks " who incurred their 
special displeasure. We had seen enough to send 
our hearts and hopes down to zero. As we were 
marching along, each one apparently wrapped in 
his own thoughts, we passed an old Irishwoman 
standing on the sidewalk. Her rough exterior 
held a heart full of sympathy, and her knowledge 
of the misery to which we were marching seemed 
to touch a tender chord in her nature. Crossing 

69 



70 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

herself devoutly, and reverently raising her eyes 
heavenward, she said, " May God take pity on 
ye's, poor fellows ! " She evidently knew the re- 
lentless character of the men who would have us 
in their charge. 

At last we were halted in front of a huge three- 
story building on the south side of the street, 
fronting on Gary Street on the north and the 
river landing on the south. Over the front door 
on the northwest corner of the building was a 
wooden awning to which was attached a sign, 

" Ltbby & Son, Ship Giiandlers." 

Here Vv-e were, then, under the walls of that 
historic place known as " Libby Prison," within 
whose doors were crowded for systematic torture 
those who were so unfortunate as to fall into 
Rebel hands. We had not much time to study 
its external proportions. The commissioned 
officers were ordered to step out of the ranks and 
filed off into one of the rooms. We smaller fry 
were then ordered into another room on the 
lower floor. The officer in charge, throwing 
open the door, gave the command : " Step in 
lively there, God damn you ! " — an infernal com- 
mand from an infernal commander. 

We stepped in and were swallowed up, find- 
ing ourselves in a long lower room with three or 
four prior occupants. Tiicsc told us that if we 



LIBBY PRISON 71 

had not already been robbed of our valuables 
we would better secrete them, as we would be 
searched. Some of the boys succeeded in con- 
cealing their watches and gold pens. 

Very soon an officer came in with a guard 
and ordered us to fall into line. Then, com- 
mencing at the head of the line, they began a sys- 
tematic search, confiscating anything they could 
find of the least possible value. Fortunately I 
hnd but seven dollars in money, but this was 
greedily confiscated. Greenbacks w^ere begin- 
ning to look up in the Confederacy even then. 
Our squad seemed to be of the " Job's turkey" 
order, completely poverty-stricken, so that finan- 
cially we were not much of a strike for the 
searcher, who was the Captain Turner so fre- 
quently mentioned in connection with Richmond 
prison life. 

It seemed to be the aim of the Rebel authori- 
ties to put men in charge of the prisons who were 
notorious on account of their brutal natures, — 
bullies, and, I doubt not, cowards at the front, for 
no truly brave man would vent his spleen on an 
unarmed prisoner who had no means of defend- 
ing himself, and whose surroundings were such 
that prudence would forbid resistance. This is 
the most charitable aspect I can put upon the 
matter; for if such persons were not chosen in- 
tentionally, but were taken from the army with-- 



72 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

out regard to their peculiar fitness in this respect, 
it would seem to prove that, as a whole, the Rebel 
army was a set of blackguards and barbarians, 
and I cannot make that assertion. Justice to the 
true Southern soldier compels me to say that we 
generally found them true as steel to soldierly 
principles, and generous to a fallen foe. Hence 
we must attach the responsibility where it be- 
longs, — to the skirts of Jefferson Davis and his 
coadjutors, the manipulators of the Confederacy 
in the Capitol of Richmond. 

We spent only one day and a night in Libby 
and were then sent into Pemberton Building, on 
the opposite side of the street, its west line and 
Libby's east line being on the same parallel north 
and south. An alley extended along the east end 
of Libby and the west side of Pemberton, Libby 
Prison presenting its side to Cary Street, and 
Pemberton's Building an end. The lot across 
the alley was vacant. The east half of the build- 
ing, known as Smith's Building, was also full of 
prisoners. It fronted on Cary Street and ran 
easterly to a cross street. 

I am thus particular in describing the build- 
ings, because many persons suppose that the 
Richmond prisons were all one, called " Libby 
Prison," whereas Libby was only one of a num- 
ber, all under the same management, the officers 
having their hcadcjuartcrs in the west end of 



PEMBERTON PRISON 73 

Libby, on the first floor. The cook-house was 
in the same building, and it may be to this fact 
that the Richmond prison system is known as 
" Libby." The Libby Building was used almost 
exclusively as an officers' prison and hospital. 
The Pemberton Building was a four-story brick 
warehouse, with a basement, the fourth floor be- 
ing a garret, and the roof a lean-to to Smith's 
Building, making the room perhaps ten feet on 
one side and just high enough on the lower side 
to admit of a person sitting on the floor com- 
fortably. There were two windows at each end 
of the room, the only means of light and ventila- 
tion. The room contained perhaps one-third 
less floor room than the rest of the rooms in the 
building. The remaining rooms were well 
lighted and ventilated by windows in the west 
side and at both ends. 

Here 750 of us " Yanks " were quartered, giv- 
ing 200 to each of the three main rooms and 150 
to the garret. The squad to which I belonged 
occupied the garret. This was not allotting to 
each man any more room than is supposed to 
justly belong to each member of the human fam- 
ily as his final resting-place. When we came to 
lie down at night the whole floor was pretty well 
covered, making it very difficult to get around 
without stepping on a neighbor. The rooms be- 
low were more aristocratic, having gas to light 



74 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

them, so that they could see to get around among 
the sleeping crowd. 

But our quarters, like garret quarters gener- 
ally, were minus such modern improvements, 
and, the room standing north and south, it be- 
came night with us very soon after sundown. 
When night proper closed in, we were in palpa- 
ble darkness, blackness itself, the roof being so 
low. The tin roof, too, rendering it air-tight, the 
atmosphere was at times stifling. Then, in addi- 
tion to the much-breathed air of our own room, 
we received through the stairway an additional 
amount from the rooms below, so that our at- 
mosphere was poison itself. A cup of water left 
standing on the floor over night became stag- 
nant and unfit for use, — really putrid, so that it 
stank. At times it seemed almost impossible to 
breathe, it was so close. Frequently, when lying 
down, I have had to get up before I could inflate 
my lungs, my chest feeling as though a hand of 
iron had grasped me in its clutches. A number 
of times I awoke to find myself sitting up and 
struggling for breath, my head seeming really to 
burst and my eyes to spring from their sockets. 
Our position was about the centre of the room, 
close to the stairway, so that what little fresh air 
came in at the windows was robbed of its oxygen 
before it reached us. It was always worse at 
night than in the daytime, when persons walking 



AMENITIES OF PRISON LIFE 75 

around helped to keep the air in motion. Dur- 
ing the day, too, we could go down on the lower 
floors. 

Our evenings were generally spent in vocal- 
izing patriotic and other songs and hymns. We 
had several good singers and managed to spend 
the evenings very well. When anything was 
started that all could join in, we fairly made the 
tin roof jingle. It was not an unusual thing to 
have our melodies broken by cries of " Get off 
my leg ! " or " Take that, damn you ! " accom- 
panied by an ominous thud or grunt (that most 
of us understood because we had been there), 
caused by some luckless fellow who, in attempt- 
ing to reach the stairway in the dark, had tres- 
passed on some neighbor's foot, receiving in re- 
turn a kick that would cause him to lose his bear- 
ing and topple on to some one else with like re- 
sults, until he was as likely to reach the stairs 
on his head as any other way. Such events hap- 
pened so frequently that we called going to the 
stairway after night, " running the gauntlet," 
and when it became necessaiy for any one to 
make the trip, those along the line would receive 
warning by his calling, " Look out ahead, I'm 
going to run the gauntlet ! " — so that those who 
were awake would draw up their feet and make 
as clear a way as possible. 

Each morninsr we were called into line four 



76 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

deep and counted. This duty was performed in 
our building- (and I suppose in all the rest) by a 
young man named Ross, who was said to be a 
deserter from a New York regiment. I cannot 
vouch for the correctness of the report, but for 
the credit of the Federal army it was as well that 
he should be where he was, as he could certainly 
have been no special credit to any community. 

After roll-call, or, more properly, after count, 
we received our rations, which in Richmond usu- 
ally consisted of a pint of boiled sweet potatoes, 
half a pound of bread, and a small piece of cooked 
beef or pork. Sometimes a pint of pea soup was 
substituted for potatoes. This constituted a ra- 
tion for twenty-four hours. The cooking was 
done in a very slovenly manner, but we were not 
disposed to find fault with that, as it was gener- 
ally understood by the prison authorities that we 
had stomachs like ostriches, that could tolerate 
anything, from a junk bottle to an india-rubber 
boot. Of course, where there was such a large 
family to provide for, they could not devote much 
lime to such superfluities as washing and prepar- 
ing the raw material. Consequently, when we 
found pine leaves, straw, and such other stuff as 
they had been stored in, among the potatoes, or 
when our pea soup was covered with bugs, we 
pulled them out or skimmed them off without a 
word of complaint or disapproval, unless, as was 



"FILLING UP THE CHINKS" 77 

sometimes the case, the foreign matter was in 
such quantity as to take too large a percentage of 
the allotted measure. Then we did feel disposed 
to grumble, for even when it was all food we 
had nothing to spare. After we had become 
more accustomed to prison fare, however, we 
became less careful in skimming off the bugs, es- 
teeming them as necessary to filling up the chinks. 
So we took it, as one of the boys suggested, 
" blind." *' Try it," said he, " and see how nice 
they crack between your teeth." 

I had often, in boyhood days, wondered at the 
persistency of a dog gnawing at a bone with such 
meagre results, and never was fully able to ap- 
preciate his sagacity in so doing until, as prison- 
ers, we were compelled to look deeper than the 
outside to find any substance in some of our ra- 
tions, the bones having been fairly picked before 
they reached us; hence we carefully crushed the 
joints and extracted all the substance from the 
medullary portion by chewing it. In this way 
we could get a good deal of satisfaction out of 
bones which by the uninitiated would have been 
thrown away as useless. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE SUGAR RIOT 



AFTER we had been in Pemberton some weeks, 
and had studied the views from all the win- 
dows; had talked about exchange until the theme 
had become stale and threadbare ; watched the ebb 
and flow of the tide in James River until it had 
become monotonous; had speculated upon the 
mission of a little tugboat that used to run down 
the canal every day, with a cannon elevated on 
a post at its prow, which we dubbed " the 
Confederate Navy " and " the flag-of-truce boat," 
— time began to hang heavy on our hands. 
True, we sometimes had a test of champion- 
ship among some of the boys, yet not enough 
to vary the monotony a great deal. Finally those 
on the lower floor began to wonder what the 
basement of the building contained. Investiga- 
tion being one of the marked traits of the average 
Yankee, the boys on the lower floor, being fair 
representatives of the race, did not theorize long 
on the subject. 

When first brought into the building from the 
street, we had entered a small office room from 

78 



EXPLORING THE BASEMENT 79 

which the stairway ran to the upper floors; but 
we had noticed a door leading from the office also 
into what we knew must be a basement. Now, 
what that basement contained, if anything, was 
the problem for solution. Two hours' work with 
an old case knife sufficed to cut out a hole large 
enough to allow an explorer to pass through into 
the darkness below. All this required extreme 
caution, in order not to arouse the guards, who 
occupied the rooms in front, lest a spirit of coun- 
ter-investigation be aroused on their part. Yet 
had any of the guards made their appearance on 
the floor, they would not have noticed anything 
unusual going on. They might even have gone 
to the locality of the hole, but their suspicions 
would not have been excited by seeing two men 
sitting cross-legged on their blankets, busily at 
work on bone trinkets, nor would they have been 
likely to attach any significance to a number of 
raps with a knife on the floor, as the fellow was 
only tightening his knife-handle. No alarm hav- 
ing been given, the agreed signal from below an- 
nounced that the explorer had come to the front 
to report. 

"What do you find?" 

" Hist ! Not too loud ; I hear the guard talk- 
ing. I find nothing but large hogsheads." 

"Full or empty?" 

" Can't tell, it's too dark to see anything." 



8o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

" What do you think? — have you any idea?" 

" It smells like sugar ; but help me up — all 
right! — give us your hand — wait until it gets 
dark out of doors and we will open one." 

So far so good and very good, as the fellow's 
trousers showed where he had rubbed against 
some of the drainings. The hole was then closed 
to await the darkness of night. 

Near where we lay on the upper floor was a 
bricked-up doorway, and it required no great 
amount of reasoning to deduce the probability 
that a region beyond must have necessitated a 
door, and, if so, what did that region contain? 
An old case knife was soon at work picking out 
the mortar from between the bricks, one of which 
was soon loosened, then another, until one was 
pushed out on the other side. Through the hole 
a voice reached us from beyond, 

"Hello there!" 

" Hello yourself." 

*' You're knocking dirt on my bed." 

"Hell, you say!" 

"Who are you?" 

" Starved Yank. Who are you?" 

" Ditto." 

" What command ? " 

" Gunboat ' Rattler,' U. S. Marines." 

" Where are you from ? " 

" Army of the Cumberland." 



NEWS FROM CHATTANOOGA 8i 

"What news over there, — anything about ex- 
change? " 

" Exchange be damned ; it's played out — can't 
agree on the nigger." 

" Damn the nigger and the Commissioners 
too. Any news from the front ? " 

" Big fight in the West." 

"What part?" 

" Near Chattanooga." 

"Who whipped?" 

" Glorious victory for our side. Drove them 
from their position on the top of the mountain. 
Captured nearly all their artillery and turned 
their guns on them, routing them completely." 

" Who was in command ? " 

" Old Joe Hooker and Grant." 

" How did you find it out ? — where did you 
get the news ? " 

" One of the boys got a box from home, and 
one of the papers wrapped around the things con- 
tained a report of it." 

" Can't you get us the paper ? '* 

" Will try." 

In due time the well-thumbed paper was passed 
through the hole and we were eagerly devouring 
the news. Oh, how we swelled and feasted, 
gloated and emphasized, as " That's my regi- 
ment ! " and " That's my regiment ! " fell from 
this one and that, as regiment after regiment was 



82 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

called off as having' been engaged. It was as 
good as a feast of fat things to us, and the im- 
pression that would have been conveyed to the 
mind of an uninterested party would certainly 
have been that we were from an army of phlebot- 
omists, as every fellow dubbed his regiment the 
" bloody so and so," and eulogized it with " Bully 
for the bloody boys ! " 

While it brought such good news it was not 
unmixed with gall, for among the list of killed 
and wounded we found many names of comrades 
that we held in high esteem as soldiers and 
friends. Among them was Major Butterfield of 
my own regiment, who died from the effect of a 
wound received. Yet this victory was indeed 
glorious news ; we felt as if our boys were re- 
trieving their loss at Chickamauga most glor- 
iously. Then Forrest's prophecy came into our 
minds, and we wondered what he now thought 
of flaunting the " Stars and Bars" in Uncle Sam's 
face and drinking tea and coffee in an independ- 
ent Confederacy. We had heard the old negro 
news-carrier crying, " A great fight in the West," 
some time before, but did not know any more 
about it until we received the news from that 
paper. 

This old darkey news-carrier was quite a char- 
acter in Richmond. We found that his crying 
a great battle always meant good news for us, 



SUGAR AND SALT 83 

though he never gave any particulars and seemed 
entirely oblivious to our presence as he went 
shuffling along the street, with his papers strung 
over a stick hung in front of him. We noticed 
that the guards, as a rule, cared little for papers, 
seldom buying any, and seeming to care little 
about what was going on outside of Richmond. 
Some few of the officers, however, would buy 
occasionally. 

But to return to the basement. Further in- 
vestigation in that direction, and the bursting of 
one of the hogsheads, proved our explorer to 
have been correct: they were full of sugar, and 
the boys immediately began making drafts upon 
it at a reckless rate, drawing it up through the 
hole in blankets, haversacks, oyster-can buckets, 
— anything that would hold more than a hand- 
ful. Everybody had sugar, and so abundantly 
that we could eat it dry on our bread, or fix up a 
mixture of bread and sugar and water as fancy 
dictated. 

The success of our investigation was reported 
through the hole in the wall to Smith's building, 
and an exploring expedition was soon gotten up 
on that side of the house, and the floor tapped. 
Next morning a voice came through the hole : 

"Ship ahoy!" 

" Aye, aye, sir ! " 

" We've visited the hold." 



84 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

"Did you find anything?" 

" Aye, that we did, — salt ; barrels of salt, sacks 
of salt, salt, salt, salt, nothing but salt ! Wouldn't 
you like to exchange some for sugar? " 

"Certainly!" 

So the hole in the wall became the channel 
for an interchange of commodities, exporting 
sugar and importing salt. Quite a trade was 
carried on in this way for several days, but the 
spirit of monopoly began to manifest itself in our 
building, and those who claimed the territory on 
which the shaft had been sunk declared that a 
duty should be paid on all sugar imported by the 
upper floors, while the upper floors declared for 
free trade and smugglers' rights, resolving that 
sugar they would have if they had to fight for 
it. Thus the house became divided, the minority 
seeking to dictate to the majority. A rebellion 
was inaugurated, the tocsin of war was sounded, 
and a call made for volunteers to go down and 
raise the blockade. Leaders were chosen and the 
hosts were marshalled. The plan was for some 
of the boys to go down into the basement and 
pass the sugar up, while others would be there to 
receive it, and still others, stripped for battle, 
would see fair play. No objection was made to 
their going down, but as soon as a haversack was 
passed up full of sugar the straps were cut by 
the minority, letting the sugar back. The first 



THE DEVIL TO PAY 85 

string cut was like the first shot fired at Fort 
Sumter. The blood of peace receded and the 
blood of war came to the front. 

It is a well-proven fact that " when Satan 
rules, the Devil's to pay " and this was no excep- 
tion. The relief corps came up to the support of 
their friends, and the fight began — a regular 
sugar riot. I was asleep when it began, but the 
noise soon awoke me. It sounded like bedlam 
on a frolic; the building fairly shook with the 
racket. The guards sounded the alarm, and the 
long roll was beaten. The news of an outbreak 
of prisoners spread through the town. The re-- 
lief was called and charged into the building 
with fixed bayonets. The " Free Traders " came 
tumbling upstairs in a hurry, and only a few mo- 
ments sufficed to put all on our floor in the pro- 
found slumber of innocence, apparently uncon- 
scious that anything out of the usual course had 
transpired, so that when the officers came to the 
head of the stairs all was so quiet and dark, they 
concluded the riot must have had its muscle from 
the lighted floors, and all the occupants of those 
floors were made to form in line and remain 
standing until daylight, a sufficient guard being 
kept on each floor to enforce the order. When 
Ross came to call the roll next morning he said 
he knew we were not engaged in the fuss — we 
were all so quiet. Thanks to our darkness for 



86 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

once. But that was an end to our prosperity and 
speculation in sugar: selfishness was our ruin. 
Thereafter we had to eat our bread and water, 
with the remorseful thought of " what might 
have been " if we could have lived together in 
peace and enjoyed the mutual benefit arising 
from our discovery. 

The Richmond papers contained an account of 
the affair next day, in which it was stated that 
three hogsheads of sugar had been taken and 
wasted in the melee. The stock of nearly a hun- 
dred hogsheads was owned by speculators, and it 
was all taken away. Our jailers claimed that 
they knew we were getting the sugar all the time, 
but as it belonged to a set of sharks, who were 
holding it to take advantage of the necessities of 
the people by waiting for higher prices, they were 
perfectly willing we should have it if we could 
have behaved ourselves. But we were disposed 
to look on such talk as " whitewash." Prison 
authorities were not generally so well disposed 
toward us as all that, inasmuch as we had several 
times been made poorer by their cupidity. We 
were more disposed to think if they had had any 
suspicions of the sugar being there, they would 
have taken it themselves and blamed the stealing 
on us. In fact, I think the true feeling of the 
colony was expressed by one of the boys named 
Foster, a member of the Eighty-second Indiana 



CHECKMATED 87 

Regiment, who was standing in line next to me 
when the officer made the statement. Whisper- 
ing to me, he said : 

" Don't you suppose he knows that we know 
he is lying about that? The dirty pup! — cuss 
him! — I'd like to cram a few fistsful down his 
crop." 

The absence of sugar and the presence of a 
number of black eyes and bunged noses were 
noticeable effects of the fracas, but peace and 
harmony were restored by the removal of the 
cause. Imports and exports were checked by the 
blockade : we had checkmated ourselves. 



CHAPTER VIII 

TRANSFERRED TO DANVILLE 

SOON after the riot I was taken from Pem- 
berton to one of the hospitals to assist in 
taking care of the sick prisoners. The bnikling 
used as a hospital was a large tobacco-house 
several blocks from the prison and on the next 
street north. Here I was put in charge of a 
ward (as each separate room was called) con- 
taining perhaps forty beds, all occupied by those 
who had had to succumb to exposure and hard 
usage. 

Although I had been a prisoner now for a 
number of weeks, the scene at the hospital was a 
revelation of horror, giving me my first insight 
into the sufferings of our men on Belle Island, 
most of the sick in the ward being from there. 
Up to that time it was the most heart-touching 
sight I had ever seen. Though I had passed over 
several fields of carnage immediately after fight- 
ing had ceased, the sight of the dead and dying 
did not seem to appeal to the senses as did the 
sight of those dirt-begrimed, half-starved, dis- 
ease-stricken, powerless men that were put in my 



BELLE ISLAND 89 

care in that tobacco-house. Poor fellows! they 
were not declared sick enough to need hospital 
nursing until they were beyond the reach of 
remedies. The result of exposure was beyond 
my conception of possibilities, but I was only on 
the threshold then. Subsequent experience 
taught me that there is nothing so bad but it 
might be worse. 

The position of the island, the absence of any 
accommodation for the men, together with the 
chilly autumn rains, were a triple alliance against 
which the strongest constitutions could not long 
stand. Pneumonia, chronic diarrhoea, and diph- 
theria finished up the work with fearful prompti- 
tude. The physician in charge of the ward was a 
resident of Richmond and did all he could for 
the sufferers, but medical skill and appliances 
were of little use. To leave men exposed in the 
buildings and on the island until they were be- 
yond the reach of human skill, and then bring 
them to the hospital, was simply a cruel, blind 
subterfuge. A little attention given to their com- 
fort at their quarters would have been much more 
potent in saving life than all the hospital practice 
they could employ later, if saving life had truly 
been the object. 

Hard as the case already seemed, I soon found 
that it was rendered worse by a set of cormorants 
hanging around the hospital, ostensibly connected 



90 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

with it for prudential reasons, whose eyes seemed 
to take an inventory of the worldly effects of each 
patient that entered, and whose real business was 
to speculate in the clothing, blankets, and shoes 
of those who died. These we were ordered to 
turn over to the gang as soon as death claimed 
the real owner. At the head of this ring was a 
person claiming to belong to the Seventeenth In- 
diana Volunteers, and a prisoner, which might 
have been true, though from some cause he was 
a privileged character, coming and going as he 
pleased without a guard. To defeat this specu- 
lation in a measure, when one died who had a 
good blanket, pair of shoes, or any article of 
clothing, I would exchange them with some of 
the sick having poorer ones and turn over the 
tatters. I found that the same party was favor- 
ing the boys (so he made believe) by buying 
bread and butter for them in the city. As this 
seemed to be his whole business, and his residence 
was not in the building that I could see, I thought 
I would investigate and see if his bread-buying 
was, as he claimed, simply to accommodate the 
prisoners. I asked one of the guards at what 
price he would get me bread and butter, and if he 
could get them. He told me he could get me all 
I wanted and would be glad to do so, and at 
figures that showed that the prisoners' friend had 



THE PRISONERS' FRIEND 91 

been charging the boys three or four times what 
the stuff cost him, — in fact I was told he had 
made over a thousand dollars in his shameful 
speculation. I checked that by telling the men 
how to get their bread. But the result was that 
after a week's trial I was sent back to prison — 
evidently proving to be the wrong man for the 
place. Doubtless the Indiana man was the cause, 
as he seemed to be in the confidence of those in 
charge of the hospital. 

On my way back to prison we halted a short 
time in front of Libby. Dr. Herrick, my regi- 
mental surgeon, who was an inmate of Libby, 
happened to see me from one of the upper win- 
dows. He asked where I had been, etc., and said 
they expected to be exchanged in a few days, 
negotiations having been about completed for the 
exchange of medical officers. Of course they 
were feeling in good spirits over the prospect. I 
told him I had been to the hospital, and charged 
him, if they were exchanged, for God's sake to 
try to have some arrangement made to have our 
sick exchanged and cared for, as they were dying 
off like sheep. The officer who had charge of us 
ran up to one of the guards, jerked the gun out of 
his hand, and cocked it, saying to me, " You 

, hold your tongue or I'll 

shoot you." The doctor threw me out a pair of 



92 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

drawers and socks, which were truly a valuable 
accession to my wardrobe, as the weather was 
getting quite cool and I was thinly clad. 

On returning to prison we were put into the 
east end. We were now in what was called 
Smith's Building. We found that the men were 
becoming disheartened and giving way to des- 
pondency. Our imprisonment was growing dis- 
couragingly long, and cold weather was fast com- 
ing on, which few, if any, were prepared, with 
proper clothing or by physical condition, to meet. 

To add to our discomfort the news from City 
Point, the place of exchange, was very discourag- 
ing. General Grant was opposed to exchanging 
the well-fed Confederate prisoners for men dis- 
abled by sickness and exposure and advised that 
it be stopped. In fact there was a deadlock be- 
tween the commissioners of exchange which was 
not likely to result in action very soon. It was 
a sheer piece of nonsense that so many lives 
should have been left to the whims and foibles 
of a couple of commissioners. The Northern 
people could have had no idea of how we were 
treated, or they would simply have demanded 
that our exchange be made regardless of for- 
mality or the expressed wish of General Grant. 
It was one of the most provokingly foolish pieces 
of formality developed during the whole war, 
and one that resulted in the death of over forty 



PRISONERS' INGENUITY 93 

thousand men by slow torture, and the crippHng 
for Hfe of many more. We were abandoned to 
our fate simply as " a mihtary necessity." 

If we could have had reading-matter to occupy 
our minds, it would have assisted very much in 
keeping us from despondency. As it was, our only 
pastimes were in playing cards, checkers, chess, 
and like games, and in manufacturing trinkets 
out of bones, in which some of the men became 
very expert, making some things that displayed 
much skill and ingenuity considering the rudeness 
of the implements they had to work with. These 
consisted merely of old knives, pieces of knife- 
blades, and bits of glass. For drills they used 
pins and needles, running them with a bow. Of 
course, under these conditions, the work con- 
sumed time and it also kept the mind employed, 
which was an important factor in prison life. A 
deck of cards was a sight to see after we had 
used them for several months, — the corners worn 
off until they were of an oval shape, and so greasy 
that it was hard to distinguish one from the 
other. A deck was seldom idle during the day; 
we passed them around and kept them on duty, 
ministering in their way to lighten the tedium of 
the long hours. 

Generally, once a day, — about noon, when we 
had the strongest light, — we spent an hour or 
two in the necessary {pastime of removing vermin 



94 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

from our clothes and bodies. Woe to the poor 
fellow who had not strength to perform this 
work, if he had no friend to do it for him. It 
was really astonishing where the torments came 
from; for, no matter how carefully we might 
perform the work to-day, to-morrow there seemed 
to be just as many. 

We had but a scant supply of water at most, 
our building being supplied by a one-inch iron 
pipe, with a faucet on each of the three floors. 
Some days it was impossible to get enough to 
drink, and to get any for bathing purposes and 
washing our clothes was out of the question. We 
hardly dared to use it for our hands and faces. 
No soap was issued to us, so that even if the water 
supply had been sufficient it would have been a 
difficult matter to have kept ourselves in a pre- 
sentable condition. Occasionally men were as- 
signed to carry water from the river to scrub the 
floors. This was the only sanitary move I ever 
saw made, and it soon played out. We were a 
dirt-begrimed set, looking more like negroes than 
white men. 

It was a monotonous life, this weary waiting 
for exchanges, and yet we had had a compara- 
tively short experience. The only sound that 
reached us from without was the steady " tramp, 
tramp, tramp," of the guards on the brick pave- 
ments below, some of whom, wearing wooden- 



SUNDAY IN RICHMOND 95 

soled shoes, varied the sound to a " clog, clog-, 
clog." During the night it was the duty of each 
sentry to cry out the number of his post and 
the hour, beginning at Post No. i, ending with 
" All's well ; " in this way the officers knew they 
were all awake and at their posts. 

Some of the guards were very much disposed 
to trade with those of the boys who had managed 
to secrete their money. Those who lacked cash 
would trade their blankets, shoes, and coats for 
things to eat. From the back windows we had a 
view of a poulterer's yard, and could see him 
each day putting his flock through the stuffing 
process, fattening them for market. The boys 
would call to him that they were fat enough ; that 
if he would send them up they would pick them 
for him. 

When we were put into Smith's Building it var- 
ied the monotony a little, affording us an oppor- 
tunity of studying Richmond from another side 
of the house. On Sunday afternoons, when the 
weather was fair, the streets presented a more ani- 
mated appearance, seeming to be a favorite prom- 
enade for the negroes and devil-may-care women 
of the city, who would promenade for hours back 
and forth with the guards. A great many of the 
negroes had finely dressed white children in 
charge, and among all of them was a spirit of 
holiday jollity that put the idea of war and its 



96 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

horrors entirely out of sight, so accustomed may 
the mind become to stern facts as to accept them 
with an indifference that seems astounding from 
a civic standpoint. Sometimes, as we were spec- 
tators of the busy promenade, we had to accept 
a Httle of the spirit of bravado from the pent-up 
wrath of the promenaders, mixed occasionally 
with a laughable episode. We seldom got sight 
of a horse and buggy while in Richmond, and 
saw very few men not in soldiers' garb. We sup- 
posed that the horses had been pressed into the 
cavalry service, and the able-bodied men into the 
home guard. 

About this time the city was thrown into a state 
of excitement by the escape of Colonel Straight 
and a number of officers from Libby. They had 
tunnelled under the alley spoken of at the east 
end of the building into a vacant lot or court, from 
which they scattered. The outbreak seemed to 
awaken a fear that the collecting of so many 
prisoners within the city was not a safe policy, 
as there might be an outbreak which, if properly 
carried out, with the concerted action of Union 
men resident in the city, would give the place into 
Yankee hands. While such an event might have 
been possible if there could have been precon- 
certed action among the prisoners, it was scarcely 
possible, owing to the isolated situation of the 
various buildings used as prison quarters, and 



DEPRESSION OF SPIRITS 97 

the close guard maintained over each, to bring- 
around such an event, unless, indeed, abettors 
could be found among the Confederate soldiers 
themselves. The fear once begotten, however, 
resulted in the establishing of a depot for prison- 
ers at Danville, southwest of Richmond and near 
the North Carolina line, and vague rumors soon 
began to reach us that we were to be moved 
there as a place of greater safety. These rumors 
were not calculated to strengthen our faith in 
exchanges, and had a very depressing effect upon 
many of the boys, who seemed to lose hope and 
gave way to depression of spirits that soon 
brought them under the power of disease. It 
seemed like a long time to us, as we counted up 
nearly three months of our own experience as 
prisoners; and we looked on several who had 
been prisoners six or seven months as veritable 
heroes. Our short experience, however, with the 
scant, unwholesome fare, the exposure and 
anxiety natural to our condition, was beginning 
to make its effects seen on the boys, many of 
whom had to be taken to the hospital for treat- 
ment. 

In this way time dragged along until about the 
15th of December. Early in the morning we 
were ordered to vacate our building, each one re- 
ceiving a small loaf of corn bread as he passed 
into the street. We were marched up Cary Street 



98 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

until we came to the bridge, over which we crossed 
to Manchester. Again the James River rolled be- 
tween us and Richmond, and we interpreted the 
move to mean Danville and postponement of ex- 
change. As in most military moves we were 
ahead of transportation and had to wait several 
hours before the train was ready to receive us. 

The air seemed very chilly, coming, as we had, 
from the crowded building and many of the boys 
being destitute of hats and shoes, but its fresh- 
ness and purity seemed to infuse new life into 
us. We amused ourselves and got our blood into 
circulation by playing leap frog. Our blood was 
so sluggish that it took considerable stirring 
around to keep us warm. 

About an hour after sunrise the train steamed 
up on the Danville railroad, and we were ordered 
to board it, settling all doubt as to our destina- 
tion. A change brought its novelties if nothing 
else, and there was a tonic property attaching to 
it that did us good. We were in just such a spirit 
and bodily condition that " anything for a 
change " was desirable and was received with 
thankfulness, though the end was yet in darkness. 
Our last glimpse of Richmond, like our first, was 
in the quiet of early morning, but we had had an 
experience in the city from which we learned how 
a quiet exterior might cover a heart full of misery 
and woe. We drew a breath of relief as her last 



LEAVING RICHMOND 99 

spire disappeared from our view, for we knew 
that, though it pointed silently heavenward, its 
foundation was laid in a place akin to hell. 

The Richmond and Danville railroad passed 
through a section of country that did not impress 
us very favorably. Much of the land seemed to 
have been worn out and abandoned and was 
growing up to young pines for some distance out 
from Richmond. There were no towns of any 
size along the whole route, and only three or 
four stations, so that the road looked like one of 
the most unnecessary ones in the world from a 
local point of view. But from the military stand- 
point it was the most important road in the whole 
Confederacy, facilitating the throwing of troops 
from the East to the West, and vice versa, as was 
done several times to the great discomfort of 
our armies. We made a halt about the mid- 
dle of the day at a station in the woods, where 
we were allowed to get water. A number of the 
boys secreted themselves in the brush and failed 
to respond to the " All aboard " of those in com- 
mand. Whether they succeeded in making good 
their escape I never knew. At another point, in 
running a long down grade, some one cut the 
train, so that at the next up grade the engine took 
part of the train some distance before the dis- 
covery was made. This provoked considerable 
profanity on the part of the guards, and put the 



loo A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

'' Yanks " into pretty good humor. We made 
such slow time that we did not reach Danville 
until late in the night. 

As we were expected by that train, a delega- 
tion of soldiers, and not a few citizens, were 
awaiting our arrival to act as escort. We were 
not, however, " tendered the freedom of the city " 
by the mayor, but were immediately ordered into 
line by the soldiers, who, with fixed bayonets, 
marched us to the quarters that had been pre- 
pared for our accommodation, a negro martial 
band leading the way to the lively strains of 
" Dixie." They belabored the drums with a 
vigor surprising for darkeys, and stepped off with 
the pride peculiar to the race. We presume the 
" Johnnies " thought that this African band 
would be a humiliating joke on us, but we rather 
enjoyed it, as being the grandest reception we 
had received on the whole tour, or, as a big Irish- 
man expressed it : 

" Begorra, ain't that foine now ; and ain't it 
gintlemanly in the divils to be afther thrating us 
to such music and military honor ? " 

It was quite a distance from the depot to our 
assigned quarters, and with the music and our 
noise combined I feel sure that many peaceful 
dreams were given a hideous aspect along our 
line of march, and many a refreshing slumber 
broken. We could hear windows raised, and see 



ARRIVED AT DANVILLE loi 

nightcapped heads protruding from some of them, 
in anxious inquiry as to the cause of the tumult ; 
but the end came at last, and we were lodged in 
a four-story brick tobacco-house, our hearts glad- 
dened by the assurance that rations would be 
forthcoming in an hour or two. Many of the 
boys had eaten up the loaf issued at Richmond 
before we boarded the cars in the morning. The 
rough ride had given us sharp appetites, and the 
fair promise of something to eat so soon buoyed 
us up, but we soon found that they computed time 
in a different manner to that which we had been 
taught in our youth, for the two hours consumed 
the balance of the night, the whole of next day, 
and until near midnight the next night. I had 
been prudent enough to husband my supply in 
anticipation of such an event, and did not suffer 
so much, but those who had been so indiscreet 
with their little loaves suffered the keen pangs of 
hunger. Our first ration consisted of a good- 
sized piece of very dark, heavy bread (apparently 
baked in large sheets about two inches thick) 
and boiled corned beef. The bread tasted very 
well, but I never could imagine from what kind 
of flour it was made. 



CHAPTER IX 

MODE OF LIFE AND RATIONS AT DANVILLE 

WHEN morning came we found we were 
quartered in one of four large tobacco 
factories, built one on the north (Prison No. i), 
two on the west ( Nos. 2 and 3 ) , and our building 
(No. 4) on the south sides of an open square con- 
taining about one city block, the Dan River run- 
ning in a northeasterly direction near to and in 
rear of Nos. i and 2. The building on the north 
side and our building were of brick, the others 
of frame construction ; each had four stories in- 
cluding a garret. Back of No. 3, on the river 
bank, or nearly so, was another large building, at 
that time used as a woollen factory, run by the 
Confederate government, in the manufacturing 
of Confederate gray and army blankets. To the 
southwest of No. 4, on a rising piece of ground, 
stood another large building, used as barracks 
by the guard. The four buildings fronting on the 
square were used as prisons and were full. I 
believe there were still other prisons in various 
parts of the city, but those on the square were all 

that I ever saw. 

102 



SEARCHED AGAIN 103 

Here we underwent another search by a crip- 
pled man who walked with a cane. When he 
came in the first morning with a guard and or- 
dered us into line, we did so quickly, supposing it 
was for the purpose of counting rations. But 
he soon undeceived us by beginning at the head 
of the line to search us. I happened to be third 
man in the line; he took from me a silver pen- 
holder and two gold pens that had escaped Turner 
at Richmond, and hesitated whether to take some 
postage stamps, but finally said I might keep 
tliem. He then took my name in a small book 
with a description of the articles, saying : 

" These things will be returned to you when 
you leave this place. We only take them that you 
may have nothing with which to corrupt the 
guards." 

I told him they must have a very poor opinion 
of the fidelity of their guards to suppose they 
could be so easily bought ; that it was needless to 
offer an apology, as I understood it all, as he was 
not the first person by whom I had had the honor 
of being searched as a prisoner; that I had had 
the pleasure of being fleeced at Atlanta, skinned 
by Turner at Richmond, and was prepared to 
stand a small gutting at his hands; that we had 
been told the same thing at Richmond, but they 
had forgotten it, — at least they held on to the 
booty. He turned fairly livid with rage, but as 



I04 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

he was only supported by one guard he wisely 
choked down his wrath. One of the guards told 
us that the things were sold at auction a few days 
afterward. 

I do not suppose he secured anything of value 
on the lower floor. The boys on the next floor 
had been taking observations through a large 
augcr-holc that had been bored for a pulley-rope, 
and, justly surmising that their turn w(uild come 
next, had made what preparation they could to 
meet the emergency, and had succeeded so well 
that by the time the cripple got upstairs they were 
the most destitute set of men imaginable. We 
had learned the art of concealment at Richmond ; 
paper money was pressed into the caps of our 
army buttons, and the covers returned, so as to 
show no signs of ever having been disturbed. 
One of the boys hollowed out a place in a stone 
large enough to hold his watch, and, covering 
the place with clay, suffered the stone to lie on the 
floor. Once, while they were being searched for 
knives, the officer in charge struck the stone with 
his foot with such force as to send it rolling 
across the floor, but it remained true to the secret 
entrusted to it and escaped without creating sus- 
picion. Another saved his watch by cutting his 
ration of bread, putting his watch in the centre, 
and carefully fastening the bread together with 
wooden pins. 



TREASURE TROVE 105 

We had the privilege of a small yard, perhaps 
twenty by forty feet, enclosed by a high, tight, 
board fence. The well in this enclosure, about 
thirty feet deep, afforded an abundant supply of 
excellent water, a very decided improvement on 
the Richmond hydrant water. 

Investigation disclosed a basement to our build- 
ing wherein were stored a quantity of tobacco 
stems and a number of sheets of tin. The latter 
were quickly converted into stewpans by turning 
up the edges and turning the corners in against 
the sides, timely and important discovery and 
inventions which later were turned to good ac- 
count. The tobacco stems were an ambrosial 
feast to the old smokers ; they were eagerly sought 
after and as highly prized as their rations. Some 
of the prisoners had managed to keep their pipes 
through the past vicissitudes of prison life, and 
these were in great demand. They were always 
in use and were seldom allowed to get cold dur- 
ing the day, as they were generally spoken for 
several smokes ahead; in fact, in the middle of 
the night, a starry glow could frequently be seen 
that marked the pipe on its mission of comfort 
among the boys. 

We sometimes had wood issued to us, and 
now to look back and see the value we attached 
to it is really amusing. They issued about one- 
third of a cord at a time, which, when divided 



io6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

among seven hundred men, gave but a small stick 
to each, — about the size of a small stick of stove 
wood, which had to suffice for a week or more. 
To give an idea of its value and the manner in 
which we had to divide it in order to give each 
man his ration, I will give the process in detail. 
It was issued to us in the ordinary cord sticks, 
which were divided as equally as possible among 
the floors in quantity corresponding to the num- 
ber of men on the floor. Each floor then divided 
its quantity among the squads on the floor as 
equitably as possible; then, that there might, be 
no possible room for grumbling, after it was 
divided into piles corresponding to the number of 
squads on the floor, one man turned his back. 
The sergeant then pointed to a pile and called 
out, "Whose is this?" the other naming the 
squads as they came to his mind until all were 
gone. From this choice there was no appeal. 
Each squad then made a division of its wood to 
the individual members. In order to do this the 
sticks had to be split up into kindlings, and, see- 
ing that we had no tools of any kind, the " John- 
nies " having taken even our knives, the difficulty 
of the task may be imagined. On our floor we 
hrid a railroad spike and a piece of iron about six 
inches long by one inch wide, one side of which 
had been hammered down to an edge. These, 
with a small chunk of wood for a beetle, were our 



AS PRECIOUS AS GOLD 107 

only implements with which to convert those 
rough sticks into fragments sufficiently small to 
make a fair issue to the men. Suffice it to say, it 
was a hard day's work to divide up three or four 
such sticks into proper size to give each man his 
share, and sometimes, when the wood was espe- 
cially hard and knotty, two days would be con- 
sumed in dividing the ration among a squad. 
After each one had received his ration, it was still 
further split into slivers like straws, and carefully 
bound into bundles, which on our floor we usually 
hung to the rafter over our sleeping-place. A 
ration thus worked up would make a bundle 
about the size of an ordinary forearm, which we 
hoarded as carefully as if it had been gold. 

Now, it may be asked, Why all this work for 
so little? Well, we could trade our shoes, blouses, 
trinkets made from bones, etc., with the guards, 
getting rice in exchange, and when we drew a 
ration of meat containing a bone we pounded the 
bone up into fragments, and, boiling the pith with 
the rice, made a very acceptable soup, far super- 
ior to any issued to us from the cookhouse. We 
accomplished the cooking by digging a small 
trench in the yard, over which we placed the pans 
made from the tin spoken of; in the trench we 
placed our fire, keeping up a fervent heat by con- 
stantly blowing it, but putting only a splint or 
two in at a time, so as not to use too much fuel. 



io8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

We had to do our cooking on all fours, in order 
to get our faces down so as to blow under the 
pans. It is astonishing how quickly we could 
cook a dish of rice in this way, and the very small 
amount of wood necessary to accomplish it, a 
small handful being sufficient. Our bread-crusts 
we scorched and made into coffee, boiling it in 
fruit cans, and making the one fire do for all. 
After all was done the fire was put out, and every 
small bit of unconsumed wood was carefully 
gathered up. It requires a prison experience to 
understand properly the importance attaching to 
these circumstances. Viewed in the light of the 
uninitiated, or even now in retrospect, they look 
like small matters well calculated to provoke a 
smile. To us, at that time, they were of momen- 
tous, nay, of vital importance. 

The rations issued to us after the first few days 
were of the poorest kind and revoltingly cooked. 
It was a very common thing to find rat-dung 
cooked in the rice; our pea soup, made from a 
kind of black pea cultivated abundantly through 
the South, and fully ripe when gathered, was 
always covered with pea bugs, which floated on 
top; cabbage soup was sometimes substituted for 
pea soup, and this was worse, if possible, than 
the other, as only the outside leaves, covered with 
worms, were used in making it. The peas, or cab- 
bage, as the case might be, were boiled with the 



OUR VICTUALS 109 

meat, — either corned beef or bacon, — which was 
put into the mess kettle without being properly 
prepared and cleaned, and frequently our meat 
rations consisted of ham and shoulder bones from 
which the juicy parts of the meat had been cut 
before they were issued to us, as though they had 
been refuse from the town or from our own 
guards. The water in which everything was 
cooked was taken from the Dan River and was 
very muddy, so that the soup always contained 
more or less grit; hence, you can readily see the 
importance attaching to our crude method of 
working over our rations and treating them with 
pure water from the well, and why the tin stew- 
pans were of such value. 

Then, too, the time consumed in the prepara- 
tion of meals kept our minds engaged, giving us 
a mental rest from the morbid state into which 
we were liable to be brought by constantly brood- 
ing over our condition. A careful study of the 
cases which had to be sent to the hospital con- 
vinced me that many diseases had their origin in 
mental rather than physical conditions, — condi- 
tions which finally brought the unfortunate one 
beyond the reach of aid. 



CHAPTER X 

COLD^ SMALLPOX^ AND SCURVY 

THE weather was growing cold and we were 
illy prepared to meet it, clad as we were 
and insufficiently fed. Many of the boys had 
traded their blouses for rice, leaving but a tat- 
tered shirt and pants to keep them warm. Our 
future had indeed a gloomy outlook, and disease 
began to make inroads into our ranks. The de- 
spair of near exchange had a very depressing in- 
fluence on the sick, seemingly depriving them of 
all mental power to resist disease. Our sanitary 
condition was bad in the extreme, and no pro- 
visions were made to heat our quarters. A few 

days after our arrival a Mr. D came into 

No. 4 and called for a hospital steward. I was 
pointed out to him. He inquired if there were 
any in the building needing hospital attention 
and left some medicine with me to give to those 
suffering from diarrhoea, instructing the sick to 
be at the entrance room in the morning at sur- 
geon's call. Toward the latter part of December 
the sick were accumulating so that it became nec- 
essary to open a new hospital, and through the 
no 



A SOUTHERN CUSTOM iii 

influence of Mr. D I was given charge of 

a ward. Here, though as closely under guard, we 
were much better provided for than in prison, 
having a bunk and straw bed to sleep on and 
good warm fires. I found the sick were provided 
for as well as circumstances would permit; each 
patient had a bunk to himself, and our food was 
more abundant and prepared with some degree of 
cleanliness and care. The buildings were under 
the immediate care of Drs. Boyd and Hunter. 
The former was a genial, old-fashioned fellow, 
free from ostentation, and running over with fun. 
I think he was not a regimental surgeon. Dr. 
Hunter, who wore the uniform of the army and 
was by birth a Marylander and a member of a 
Maryland regiment, was more distant in his man- 
ners and not given to communication. 

Dr. Boyd called my attention one day to an old 
white-headed darkey leading an old, white, raw- 
boned horse near the building, and said : 

" An incident occurred a few days since, in 
which that old couple were actors, that may seem 
a little novel to a Northern man. That old horse 
was sold under the hammer, and that old darkey 
bought him in for ten dollars, which ordinarily 
he had a right to do; but it happens that the old 
fellow has no home, and, under the law, is a 
vagrant. The city, being chargeable with the 
care of vagrants, provides them with homes by 



113 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

putting them up at auction and selling them to 
the person who will keep them for what work 
they can do. Well, the old fellow was put up, 
but no one wanted him, so he became city prop- 
erty. Now, you see, he owns the horse, and the 
city owns him, and so the city will put him 
to carting dirt or any other work he may be 
capable of doing, and will have to see they are 
both properly cared for. Yes, there are some 
funny things growing out of slavery, as you will 
see if you remain in the South long." 

During the holidays the weather turned very 
cold. The New Year's Day of 1864 is remembered 
all over the country on account of its severity, 
and Danville was no exception. The sick were 
rapidly increasing on our hands, every day bring- 
ing its quota. Their recitals of their sufferings 
in the prison buildings during the cold snap were 
heartrending. With the mercury at iour degrees 
below zero, and the men in the condition I have 
described, without fires, it requires no vivid imag- 
ination to paint their miseries. For two days 
and nights they had to keep up an almost con- 
stant walking to keep from freezing to death, 
hardly daring to take the sleep necessary, lest 
they never should awaken. It must have been 
extreme torture and I was truly thankful for that 
Providence which had saved me from this trial. 

The building used for a hospital to which they 



A LIBEL ON THE SOUTH 113 

first took us was a large brick tobacco warehouse, 
so centrally located in the town that the people 
began to complain of its proximity to their dwell- 
ings, especially as smallpox had broken out in 
the prisons, and they feared its spread in the city. 
Justice to the South here demands a few words 
in regard to statements I have frequently seen 
made by prisoners; namely, that the surgeons of 
the Confederate army vaccinated the prisoners 
with impure virus and with virus taken from 
smallpox patients. Of course, I can only speak 
for Danville, but the assertion is absurd, locate it 
where you will. The fact is, the men were not 
vaccinated at all until the disease had made its 
appearance, and all had been exposed to it. Then, 
too, scurvy was making rapid inroads among the 
men, so that it was really dangerous to open a 
sore on the person such as was likely to result 
from a vaccine pustule. In fact, so poisoned were 
our systems that I would rather have taken the 
chances on smallpox than to open a suppurating 
sore, almost certain to follow vaccination in a 
system full of scurvy, and everything about hav- 
ing a tendency to foster gangrene. All the virus 
I saw bore the U. S. mark and was mostly from 
Philadelphia. The disease was in a very modified 
form; I suppose the men were sufficiently dieted 
for it; certainly, at least, there was no adipose 
tissue to interfere. The mortality was very light 



114 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

from this cause compared with the mortality from 
pneumonia and chronic diarrhoea accompanied by 
a low state of the system. In fact, it ran its 
course with many of the boys without causing 
much discomfort aside from a few pustules, 
while pneumonia or chronic diarrhoea, once fas- 
tened, seldom let go its grip save in death. There 
seemed to be no rallying force to build on and 
assist treatment. About all we could do with 
such cases was to ease them off from the shores 
of time. The surgeons did all in their power, but 
their means were limited. 

In the latter part of January the sick were 
removed from my ward and we returned to No. 
4. How eagerly the boys pressed around us to 
know if wc had any news of exchange; but we 
were not the messengers of hope. We were sur- 
prised to see what a difference the five weeks we 
had been out made in the looks of the men. Dur- 
ing the cold snap they had built fires indoors from 
the ration wood, taking bricks from the walls to 
make a safe foundation. Then they would crouch 
around the fires and draw their blankets around 
them so as to hold the heat in. Of course, this 
filled the house with smoke and gave the boys a 
dried-halibut look. The tales they told us of 
their sufferings during the cold spell were tales of 
horror, confirming the reports brought us by the 
sick. Rumors now began to reach us of a contem- 



CONFEDERATE BARBARITY 115 

plated move little calculated to make us desire the 
change, especially after reading an editorial on 
the subject in one of the Richmond papers. I 
cut out the extract, intending to keep it as a proof 
of the spirit that ruled in the treatment of pris- 
oners, but lost it with many other extracts of 
similar character in attempting to make my es- 
cape. It was as nearly as possible in these words : 

" A move is in contemplation among officials, and has 
been recommended, having for its object the removal of the 
Yankee prisoners now confined in Richmond and Danville 
to the cornfields of central Georgia. We think this would 
be a wise move, as it will take them nearer the base from 
which their supplies are brought, doing away with trans- 
porting it to them, and placing them also where the climate 
may tell upon them as heavily as our army is doing in 
front." 



CHAPTER XI 



MORE HOSPITAL DUTY 



AFTER several weeks I was again drafted for 
hospital duty. Our boys were coming 
down so fast it became necessary to increase the 
hospital room to meet the demand. The author- 
ities took possession of three buildings which had 
been specially erected as a general hospital for the 
use of their army in Virginia. They were 
located in the eastern part of the city, and prob- 
ably outside the corporation limits. They were 
airy and comfortable, and were located on a very 
pretty knoll overlooking Dan River and giving 
a fine view of its meanderings among the hills 
for several miles. Each building was fifty by two 
hundred feet, boxed with rough lumber, and two 
stories high. A hall above and below divided 
them into four wards, each containing sixty 
bunks, and each bunk supplied with a straw bed, 
straw pillows, and sufficient covering of quilts to 
make the men comfortable. The walls and ceil- 
ing were nicely whitewashed and festooned with 
evergreens, as if loving hands of the gentler sex 
had been plying their handiwork in the mission of 

ii6 



CARING FOR THE SICK 117 

mercy. It was done for the sons of the South, 
but we Northerners appreciated and enjoyed the 
effect. Without exception they were the best ar- 
ranged and most commodious hospital buildings 
I saw in the South. An abundance of water 
bubbling up in a spring near by probably had 
much to do with its location. Everything was 
new, and affairs were under the surveillance of a 
number of Confederate supernumeraries, gener- 
ally of the kid-glove class, sent here to be out of 
danger, who, to keep up the shadow of a neces- 
sity, attended to their several offices quite atten- 
tively. A laundry department kept us supplied 
with changes of bed linen and shirts to a limited 
extent. For those of us who could walk, our 
meals were prepared at the cookhouse and were 
served in a comfortable dining-room in the rear 
of the building. Those who were bedfast were 
served at their bunks, and the food was unusually 
well prepared. Taking all in all, we had reason 
to be thankful for this mollifier of our otherwise 
wretched condition. 

Our mode of procedure when we received a 
patient from either of the prisons was to strip 
him naked and stand him in a tub of warm water, 
if he had strength to stand; if not, we supported 
him in an upright position until he could be thor- 
oughly scrubbed and cleaned with soap. We 
then gave him a clean shirt and drawers and put 



ii8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

him to bed. This generally occurred about two 
o'clock in the afternoon, and in most cases they 
would soon fall asleep and we would hear no 
more from them till next morning. The bath, 
straw bed, and warm covering were luxuries they 
never got in the prison quarters, where the hard 
floor had been their bed, in most cases with no 
covering at all. Poor fellows ! the beds we gave 
them were a rest to their weary limbs that wooed 
them to slumber. 

I was put in charge of Ward No. 3, the upper 
room on the east side of the most easterly building 
and nearest the spring. This building was under 
the supervision of Dr. Dance, a Confederate sur- 
geon of whom I formed a very high opinion for 
his gentlemanly treatment of myself and the sick 
of my ward. 

Scurvy was now becoming alarmingly preva- 
lent, and formed, when combined with chronic 
diarrhoea (as it generally was) or with pneu- 
monia, a combination at once hard to control 
with the medicines we had at our hands. Drs. 
Hunter and Dance, with Dr. Fontleroy as direc- 
tor, did all they could for the boys, but the mor- 
tality was heavy. The poor fellows needed 
food more than medicine; vegetable food would 
have done more good as a curative than all 
the medicines that could have been given 
them. It may possibly have been the prompt- 



AN ANGEL OF MERCY 119 

ing'S of a desire to give the patients the bene- 
fit of an antiscorbutic diet that led the authorities 
to have a wagonload of the outside leaves of cab- 
bages, worm-laden and dirt-discolored, thrown 
into one of the small rooms spoken of in No. 4 
prison, with the announcement, " Help your- 
selves, Yanks ; they are for you ; pitch in ! " It 
was an ingenious mingling of the animal and 
vegetable pretty evenly divided, but the boys 
made fair soup from it, — understand me, I mean 
prison soup, though it was a compound an aver- 
age Northern hog would turn from in disgust. 
It was simply a philosophical acceptation of a 
principle laid down by an old gentleman named 
" Hobson," whom, no doubt, we have all had 
quoted to us, — " That or nothing." 

There was living near the hospital a lady, 
whose name I fear has slipped my memory, 
though I think it was Rodgers, the widow of a 
Confederate lieutenant killed in front of Rich- 
mond. She seemed to fill the position of matron 
or to have held that position during the occupancy 
of the buildings by their men. At any rate, she 
deserves kindly mention on account of the many ' 
kindnesses extended to our very sick boys, many 
of whom received delicacies which only a 
woman's hand knows how to administer, — the 
smoothing of a pillow, a word of cheer or sym- 
pathy, or the moistening of fevered lips with 



120 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

lime-juice from a silver cup which she usually 
carried. We were visited frequently also by Rev. 
Dr. Carmichael, of the Episcopal Church, who 
distributed Testaments among the boys and gave 
spiritual advice to any who desired it, in a kindly 
way that won him a place in the affections of the 
men. I love to refer to such characters, for they 
deserve to be kindly remembered. From what I 
saw I think they did the best they could for our 
sick in Danville. 

I once unintentionally touched Dr. Fontle- 
roy's dignity by making a suggestion regarding 
a patient who was very low with typhoid fever, 
in that wakeful, wild state it sometimes assumes, 
with the skin dry and hot. While the doctor was 
examining him, I said : 

" You will get a good effect from a heavy 
Dover's powder administered to him to-night." 

" Don't you know, sir," he said, " you might 
about as well kill him as to give him any opiate 
in the condition he is in? No, sir, a Dover's 
powder given him now would kill him." 

Well, I made up my mind he would die if he 
did not get one, so I went to the office and got 
a ten-grain powder, combining some camphor 
with it, and administered it to him about eight 
o'clock. He soon quieted down and fell asleep, 
his skin became moist, and next day, when the 
doctor made his round, the patient was rational. 



SMALLPOX OR ANDERSONVILLE ? 121 

" Now," said he, as he came to examine the 
man, " what do you thint: of your Dover's pow- 
der ? I never saw a greater change in my Hfe in 
one night." 

But I held my peace and did not mention my 
treatment. 

The movement of prisoners to Andersonvillc 
had begun, and Dr. Dance came in one morning 
and said he had orders to send every man in his 
wards who could walk, back to the prisons, to be 
sent south. He continued : 

" They intend using this building for a small- 
pox hospital. Now, if you will take charge of a 
ward of smallpox I think I can manage so that 
you can remain." 

After duly weighing the matter I concluded 
that my chances of taking the disease were about 
as good in the prison as in the hospital, so I told 
him I would take charge and remain, preferring 
even the chances of smallpox to the privations of 
Andersonvillc. I could not down the ghost 
raised by the editorials in regard to Anderson- 
ville. They struck me at the time as being the 
coolest survey of a probable mortuary result that 
I had ever read or heard. It was murder not only 
premeditated, but publicly recommended. And 
the locating of the stockade at Andersonvillc was 
a grand supplement to such a spirit, and worthy 
the genius of its advocates and projectors. It is 



122 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

useless to tell me that the locality of Anderson- 
ville was not well studied. Yet, notwithstanding 
all the adduced testimony in the case, men will 
stand up in the halls of Congress and declare 
that the inhuman treatment of prisoners was un- 
known to them and to the Confederate author- 
ities at Richmond. Such assertions are prepos- 
terous and bear falsehood on their very face, with 
the stench of Belle Island wafted to their nostrils 
by every breeze blowing from the south, the is- 
land itself in view of the windows of the Capitol, 
and their morning papers bearing editorials of 
this character to their very desks. To deny all 
knowledge of these things is to put the stamp of 
ignorance and incapacity upon their pseudo-gov- 
ernment and Chief Executive. Yet I do not 
wonder that they attempt to deny all knowledge 
of it. Its recollection ought to be sufficient to 
cover them with shame so great they never could 
raise check sufficient to ask to be doorkeepers, 
even, in the Capitol at Washington. 



CHAPTER XII 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 



BUT I find I am getting ahead of my diary 
and must return to my experience after 
my first return to prison in January. Soon after 
my return some of the boys conceived the idea 
of making an escape by tunnelHng out. Among 
them were several members of the Eighteenth 
U. S. Infantry, D. S. Wilder, Tooker, and others 
whose names have been forgotten. 

The place decided on for the experiment was 
beneath the floor of our office room on the west 
side of the building. Having made all necessary 
observation from an upper window, it was de- 
cided that it would be necessary to go down six 
feet in order to pass under a drain before striking 
a lateral direction under the street into a vacant 
lot beyond. These preliminaries being agreed 
upon, work was commenced by sinking the shaft. 
The tunnel proper was about three feet high by 
two feet wide. As I had secured a number of 
candles while out, my share was to furnish the 
light, the others doing the work. And hard 
work it must have been, too, with only case 

123 



124 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

knives to loosen the hard clay and the diggers' 
hands to throw the dirt back, which was done by 
passing it between their legs while in a kneeling 
position. 

After the soil was brought to the surface it 
had to be carefully packed away under the floor. 
The air was so close that the men could only 
work a few minutes at a time and then come out 
for air. In this way several weeks were con- 
sumed and the utmost secrecy was exercised. All 
work had to be done by daylight, as a guard was 
stationed on the lower floor every night. At 
night the diggers would report progress, and we 
Avould lay plans for our course after we got out, 
for we did not have a thought of failure. In this 
way work progressed until we reckoned that one 
more day would complete it. Our hearts beat 
high with hope : we could almost fancy ourselves 
free men in God's country. 

Next day the men went to work to complete 
the tunnel so far that nothing would remain to 
be done but to break through to the surface. But 
" the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft 
agley." On that eventful day a Confederate of- 
ficer and squad of men filed into the building, 
marched up to the place where the boys got under 
the floor, and called : 

" Come out of there, you damned Yankees, 
you." 



INHUMAN rUNISHMENT 125 

They then took them out and made them dig 
down and fill up the tunnel. Quite a number of 
citizens came down to see the hole the Yankee 
gophers had dug. The plan had been, revealed by 
a prisoner, a sergeant from Michigan, who ex- 
pected by his perfidy to gain Confederate favor. 
Indignation filled the breasts of all who were in- 
itiated into the secret of the tunnel, for, notwith- 
standing the fact that weeks had been consumed 
in its preparation, but few in the building had 
any suspicion of its existence, and their ruling 
was that he who would betray his friends under 
such circumstances ought to die by the hands of 
the men he had betrayed, and I doubt not such 
would have been his fate if the officers had not 
given him a place in one of the other buildings. 
For this attempt at making an escape we were 
not permitted to use the lower floor, from sun- 
down to sunrise, except in squads of six at a time, 
for the purpose of answering nature's calls. The 
last man of the six had to return before another 
six were permitted to pass. This was a punish- 
ment whose severity none can know but those 
who felt its weight. Men who were suffering 
from chronic diarrhoea and scarcely able to stand 
or walk, had to take their places in line, wait their 
turn, come back, and fall into line again. I have 
frequently stood in line from dark until ten 
o'clock before my chance would come. I do not 



126 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

know that a more inhuman punishment could 
have been devised outside of starvation; it was 
simply torture. Major IMoffit, who had com- 
mand at Danville, ably seconded by Lieut. Mews 
of the Eighteenth Virginia Infantry, were the 
brutal originators of this order. After a time they 
modified the punishment by providing slightly 
better accommodations. 

I believe there were only three successful ef- 
forts made to escape from our building. The 
first was soon after our arrival at Danville. A 
cross-eyed, apparently half-witted fellow took an 
axe that was in the yard, broke the gate-fastening 
one evening, and ran ; the guard emptied his gun 
at him, but missed him in the dark, and we heard 
no more of him. For this act they took from us 
the axe. 

The next case was that of two men who slept 
on the lower floor near a window. They allowed 
us to have the windows open at that time. These 
fellows, watching their chance when the guard's 
back was toward them, jumped out and ran; he 
fired, but the darkness favored them, and we 
never heard from them again, which is the only 
evidence we had of their success. For this act 
our windows were boarded up from the outside. 
The third attempt was made by a couple of men 
from the roof of the shed on the west side. One 
succeeded in swinging ofT all right, but the other 



BRUTALITY OF GUARDS 127 

received the contents of the guard's gun, the ball 
entering the armpit posteriorly and passing up 
through the shoulder, shattering the accromian 
process. (The guard was standing under him 
when he fired. ) The poor fellow was taken into 
the building, and it was several days before they 
would permit examination by a surgeon. 

I was told this by the young man himself, who 
was put into my ward in No. 4 hospital after I 
was taken out the second time, about the ist of 
May, 1864. Dr. Fontleroy and I differed again, 
he claiming it was only a flesh wound and would 
soon heal. I held that from its direction it could 
scarcely fail to shatter the process, and that if I 
were correct, a day or two would prove it by the 
working out of spiculae of bone. If, on the other 
hand, he were correct, the absence of the spicula; 
would sufficiently attest his views. That night I 
had occasion to take several splinters from the 
wound and showed them to the doctor next morn- 
ing. This young man was still at the hospital 
when I left on the 3d of July, his system so full 
of scurvy that the wound could not heal, and I 
had my serious doubts if he would ever recover. 
For this attempt at escape all the upper windows 
were boarded up even to the garret. 

On one occasion I was standing at the fence in 
the yard, in company with a Mr. Spears, who was 
having some conversation with one of the guards 



128 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

through the fence. Suddenly the guard brought 
down his gun and fired at Spears, but the latter 
happened to move just as the man aimed. He 
got pretty well spattered with splinters, and was 
so effectually scared that, to use his own expres- 
sion, he " shook for an hour." The ball passed 
through the west back window, struck the floor 
near the old tobacco-press, and bounded out 
through the front door. It was remarkable that 
no one was struck, as quite a number of prisoners 
were on the lower floor at the time. 

On another occasion several of us were enjoy- 
ing the view from the garret front window, when, 
in trying to direct their attention to a certain 
point on the opposite side of Dan River, I 
chanced to extend my arm beyond the window. 
Hearing a guard call, " Take in your arm thar," 
I cast my eye downward and beheld him taking 
deliberate aim at my arm. I obeyed the order 
with promptness, no doubt to his disappointment, 
as a large percentage of the Danville guards were 
men who did not value the life of a Yankee very 
highly, and seemed on the alert for a pretext to 
shed blood. As an instance of their disregard of 
life, I may mention the following incident: 
Nearly opposite our building, on the west side, 
stood a small house occupied by some negro 
washerwomen, one of whom, while hanging out 
a washing, was deliberately shot at by a guard of 



FOILING THE AUTHORITIES 129 

No. 3, the ball breaking her arm. Several of our 
boys who were looking out of the windows at the 
time were witnesses of the whole affair, and saw 
nothing in the actions of the woman to provoke 
the act. It just seemed to be the leaven of the 
Devil working in them that had to have vent 
some way in the shedding of blood. The guard 
reloaded his gun and continued patrolling his 
beat as if nothing had happened, and no attention 
was given to the matter by the officers. They 
held negroes and Yanks about on a par. They 
used every pretext to render us uncomfortable, 
nor did they require an overt act on our part, for 
their fertile brains could manufacture one. 

At one time the authorities claimed to have dis- 
covered that an outbreak was being organized in 
our building, and sent in an armed body to take 
from us all knives or anything that could be used 
as a weapon of defense. As such things had 
been pretty well picked up before, a1)out all the 
knives we had were manufactured from hoop 
iron found at the time the tin and tobacco stems 
were discovered. As they began their search on 
the lower floor, those of the next floor gathered 
all their knives and put them in one corner under 
a blanket. They then put several blankets on 
top and placed a man there to play sick. When 
the " Johnnies " came to the corner where he lay 
tossing and struggling in apparent delirium, two 



ISO A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

of the boys holding- him down, they wanted to 
know what ailed liim. '' Just coming dozvn zvith 
smallpox, poor fellow; he is delirious and the 
symptoms are ." But they made for the stair- 
way with an alacrity that seemed to say, " No 
smallpox in mine, thank you ! " So we saved 
our knives. I don't know whether these little de- 
ceptions will be broug-ht up against us in the court 
of Heaven, but I certainly think we were justified 
in whipping the Devil around any stump we could 
catch him behind. 

The daily counting in our building was at- 
tended to by an Englishman named Noles, a 
kind-hearted man, though a great stutterer, a 
Confederate by force of circumstances, and al- 
ways dressed in black velvet. He came into the 
building one morning and took five of us up to 
headquarters. He said to me, as we were pass- 
ing up the street, " I g-guess yo-yo-you go-going 
this t-t-time sh-sh-shure p-p-pop ! " At head- 
quarters we were shown a number of gold pens 
and pencils and told to select ours from them ; of 
course they were not there. We were then taken 
back to prison. I never could understand the 
force of that move, or what object they had in it, 
as they asked us no questions. 

Next morning there was an order for the sick 
to report at the entrance door. The doctor sent 
word that he wanted to see me. He told me that 



MORGAN TRIES RECRUITING 131 

Dr. Hunter had told him to bring me out to be 
on hand next morning, and he would take me to 
the hospital again. I was there on time next 
day and was again put in charge of my old ward. 
I then found that the orders were to send the 
men of Prison No. 4 to Andersonville as soon as 
transportation could be procured for them. This 
was in the latter part of April, 1864. 

After the escape of General Morgan from Co- 
lumbus, he made a visit to Danville for the pur- 
pose of recruiting from among the prisoners. He 
sent word to the hospital that if there were any 
prisoners there who would like to talk with him 
he would be pleased to call and have a talk with 
them. As he did not put in an appearance, the 
presumption is that no one cared enough about 
him to want to have a talk with him. We were 
not investing very heavily in Confederate stock 
at that time, though some did take the oath of al- 
legiance as a possible means of prolonging life 
and getting out of prison. 



CHAPTER XIII 

" BEAST " BUTLER AND SOUTHERN RIGHTS 

HAVING occasion to go into the office one 
morning while at No. 3, one of the attaches 
who had been reading a paper, turning to me, broke 
out in violent defamation of General Butler. It 
was an account of Butler's appointment as Com- 
missioner of Exchange that had touched him up 
so; in fact his appointment to that position was 
a bitter pill for the South to swallow, as they had 
declared him an outlaw. After the fellow had 
said his say, I asked : 

" What has the ' Beast ' been up to now ? Has 
he been speculating in spoons again?" 

" No," said he, " but look what an insult your 
government has offered to us in asking us to 
treat with that outlaw; it don't look as though 
they cared much about getting you-all exchanged, 
as they ought to know no Southern man would 
recognize him in any official character or demean 
himself b}- having intercourse with him. Why, 
he has openly insulted every lady in the South by 
his beastly order at New Orleans, and now for 
your government to ask any Southern gentleman 



BUTLER IN NEW ORLEANS 133 

to demean himself by any show of equahty with 
him is more than the South will stand," 

" To what special order do you refer at New 
Orleans ? " I asked. 

He then read to me Butler's celebrated order 
No. 28, in regard to the women of that city, — a 
story which is too well known to all to need repe- 
tition here. 

" There! what do you think of that, and hav- 
ing that dirty dog appointed as Commissioner of 
Exchange ? " he asked, as he threw down the 
paper and struck the table a blow that made 
things rattle as he exclaimed: "Damned if I'd 
live under the United States government again 
for anything. How would you like it?" 

" Well," I said, " it has the merit of plainness, 
anyway, and I fail to see anything wrong or out 
of place in it that would characterize it as an in- 
sult. Certainly it was proper, if the ladies of 
New Orleans did not know enough to behave 
themselves with becoming propriety, for Butler 
to teach them ; and, in order that they might not 
ignorantly err, it looks to me like a gentlemanly 
act in him to define the offence beforehand and 
to announce the penalty attaching thereto, as it 
put the ladies on their guard and no doubt 
shielded them from real insult by the soldiers. 
Just reverse the order of things, and suppose the 
city was in the North and under Southern rule, 



134 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

would you not consider it proper to make all 
citizens pay due respect to your flag and sol- 
diers?" 

" Certainly," he said, " but don't you see how 
he has insulted some of the finest ladies of the 
city, and through them every woman in the 
South?" 

" All," I rejoined, " just there is where you 
err in judging Butler and make your position 
questionable, for I have more respect for the good 
sense of the better class than to believe that they 
would so far forget themselves as to conduct 
themselves in that way. But, admitting that 
they did, it was not for Butler to draw any dis- 
criminating lines. If the better class put them- 
selves upon the same footing with ' women of 
the town,' they, and not Butler, were to blame if 
they were brought under the same judgment and 
condemnation. There should be no caste or con- 
dition of society that could shield them from the 
penalty of transgressing the laws; all are sup- 
posed to be governed by them alike, — rich and 
poor, high and low, male and female." 

" Yes," he said, " your view of the case is rea- 
sonable." 

" Then," I said, " the citizens of New Orleans 
are under obligation to Butler for the great hy- 
gienic improvement he has made in the city." 



TWO VOTERS FOR JOHN BELL 135 

" Very true," he said. 

" Then you will have to admit, after all, that 
the * Beast ' is not entirely savage." 

" Well, he is no gentleman, any way," lie re- 
turned. 

I told him I could not say as to that, but that it 
would be no detriment to the United States if 
we had a few more Butlers. As to his acting as 
Commissioner of Exchange, or the policy of ap- 
pointing him to the position, I was not prepared 
to say. Certainly, if my government thought he 
was the man, I could not say otherwise; and so 
far as the result to the Confederacy was con- 
cerned, we did not recognize such a thing as yet, 
and there were some doubts yet if there ever 
would be. 

" For whom did you vote for President," I 
was asked one day. 

" My first vote was cast for John Bell, sir." 

" You did^ Well, that's strange. I voted 
for him, too, and here we are, one in the North- 
ern army and one in the Southern." 

" Not at all strange," I said politically. " I 
was in sympathy with the South, having been 
taught to look upon her rights as a sacred in- 
stitution under the Constitution; but when she 
showed the cloven foot in firing on Fort Sumter, 
my sympathy was gone; in that act she disrobed 



136 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

herself, and did more toward opening the eyes 
of the North than all the fiery speeches that had 
been made, or ordinances of secession that had 
been passed. It proves your injured rights to be 
but a pretext, a sham." 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF 1 864 

THE war cloud now began to assume a threat- 
ening aspect, and hung lowering over the 
Eastern army. The stereotyped "All quiet on the 
Potomac " bid fair to give place to the bustle inci- 
dent to an energetic campaign. General Grant, 
having been put in command there, was putting 
things into shape for an offensive movement, and 
was pushing matters with such vigor that all 
able-bodied Southerners were ordered to join 
their commands at once in order to check his ad- 
vance. 

The authorities at Danville were directed to 
get the buildings we were occupying in readiness 
for their own men from in front of Richmond ; 
and all our Confederate attaches had peremptory 
orders to join their regiments immediately. It 
caused considerable consternation among them. 
They had no desire to shoulder a musket and go 
into active duty again. One of them said to me : 

" When the war first broke out it appeared as 
though we couldn't get to the front fast enough ; 
we wanted to go right into you-all, tooth and toe- 

137 



138 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

nail ; but now, doggoned if we don't want to get 
home just as bad and a good deal more. But 
while it was an easy matter to get into the army, 
getting out is quite another matter. If I had it 
to do over again, they might do their own fight- 
ing; they'd never get me to shoulder a musket 
and leave my home." 

All of our boys who could walk were sent in a 
few days to Andersonville. We were moved to 
the smallpox camp, perhaps a mile west of town, 
some time in May. Every day, almost, we would 
hear of heavy fighting around Richmond. Dr. 
Hunter asked me one day why our government 
allowed Grant to slaughter his men so unneces- 
sarily, when they were accomplishing no good. 
Another day he spoke of Lee taking a great num- 
ber of prisoners, and of our boys being forced to 
charge until the Confederate artillery literally 
ploughed through ranks of dead piled in heaps. 

" Your men," he said, " charged up like drunk- 
en men. What . do you think of that kind of 
work; don't you think it's madness? " 

I laughed and told him I would like to hear the 
other side of the story, as I would be better pre- 
pared to judge of the rashness of the act; but 
from his standpoint it certainly did have a foolish 
and extraordinary look, and I could offer no ex- 
planation. 

We found our new quarters very pleasantly 



AN IRATE MARYLANDER 139 

located on a commanding knoll thinly covered 
with trees, beneath which the boys could rest and 
enjoy sunshine and pure air. A marked im- 
provement was soon manifest in most of the cases. 
Dr. Hunter, who had entire charge here, had us 
gather greens for them, and when the berries 
ripened they were also supplied, a treat highly 
appreciated by all and most beneficial to those 
suffering from scurvy and chronic diarrhoea. On 
one occasion he sent Mr. Schroeder, the hospital 
steward of a Missouri regiment, and myself 
under guard to the matrons to get some delicacy 
for one of the men, and instructed us to call at the 
guardhouse and ask for an extra guard to go with 
us after berries. We delivered the message in 
what we thought pretty good style, but the officer 
of the day broke out in a tirade of abuse against 
us that was very ungentlemanly and altogether 
uncalled for, adding, " If Dr. Hunter wants you- 
all to go berrying, tell him to go with you himself, 
or to furnish his own guard. I tiave sent all the 
men I am going to detail there to-day." 

A lieutenant, sitting by, said he didn't " go 
much on that Dr. Hunter, any way." 

We delivered the message and told the doctor 
what we had overheard the lieutenant say. His 
indignation was intense and beyond expression. 

" I'll teach that damned Virginian what Mary- 
land is made of," he said, and, mounting his 



140 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

horse, started to hunt him up. Next day, when 
he came out, he said : 

" Well I made that fellow take that back, or, at 
least, deny saying anything of the kind. I told 
him I could prove it. I believe he said it to you, 
but, damn him, he did not dare give me any such 
order himself; he can cuss an unarmed prisoner, 
but he mustn't try any such impudence on me to 
my face." 

The doctor was a very staunch rebel, but a gen- 
erous one. It made him very angry, however, to 
find a Southern man a prisoner in the hospital, as 
he did about the middle of June ; he said he could 
very readily forgive a Northern man entertain- 
ing opinions differing from his, but he had no 
charity for Southern traitors. The man was 
brought in suffering from pneumonia of such a 
severe type that he had to be dropped from a 
group that was being sent to Andersonville. On 
the doctor's asking his name and regiment he 
found that he was from North Carolina. 

" What ! " he said, taking a step or two back- 
ward, " from North Carolina ? " 

" Yes." 

"Born there?" 

" Yes." 

" Living there when the war brt^ke out? " 

" Yes." 

" And in the Yankee army, too? " 



A SOUTHERN PRISONER 141 

" Yes, sir." 

" Well, damn you ! you may die, you ought 
to," — and he turned away. Then in a few mo- 
ments he came to me and said, " Do all you can 
for that man; poor fellow, he will not last long, 
any way." 

Three days later the prisoner died. The morn- 
ing after, when the doctor came out, I said : 

" Well, your wish in regard to Dale is fulfilled; 
he is dead." 

" I did not wish to have him die," he said. 
" But it did make me mad for a moment when he 
said he was a North Carolinian, fighting in the 
Yankee army, — fighting against his own people 
and rights. I didn't understand it, I cannot un- 
derstand it. It's not right." 



CHAPTER XV 

OUR ESCAPE FROM DANVILLE 

WE had over us at this hospital two Confed- 
erates ; one a Mr. Walters, from Charles- 
ton; and the other a brother of Gov. Holden of 
North Carolina; he had been disabled for field 
duty by a wound in the elbow which gave him a 
stiff joint. We found both of them very pleasant 
gentlemen, seldom interfering with the running 
of the wards more than to see that all were on 
hand. As the 4th of July was drawing near I 
told Mr. Holden in a joking way that I had never 
been accustomed to being deprived of my liberty 
on that day, and they must be keenly on the alert 
or I would have my usual holiday. 

" All right," he said, " I'll see to you and keep 
you within bounds." 

Several of us had, however, been laying plans 
to " skip out " on the night of the 3d, — Schroc- 
der, Sergeant Carlisle, of a Michigan regiment, a 
big Irishman whom we called ]\Iat, and myself. 
Carlisle said he would attend to the manner of our 
escape, as he was pretty well acquainted with 
several guards of approachable disposition. He 
142 



BRIBING THE GUARD 143 

was our cook and knew that a man's prejudices 
could be overcome by appeals to his stomach. By 
the aid of one of our boys named Thurston, who 
assisted Mr. Walters in keeping the records and 
making reports, I gained access to a map of Vir- 
ginia, from which I furtively drew a map of our 
part of the State. We tried to get Thurston to 
join us, but he preferred abiding his time and 
standing chances of exchange to running the risk 
of an escape. He bound himself to secrecy, how- 
ever, in regard to the move. Mr. Walters seemed 
to suspect something, possibly from what I had 
said to Mr. Holden, and would come into my 
ward every night about ten o'clock. 

Meanwhile Carlisle had secured his man and 
arranged to have him on the beat next the cook- 
house on the eve of the 3d, to pass us out imme- 
diately after calling eleven o'clock, the price for 
this accommodation being a blanket apiece. He 
had also prepared rations to last us several days. 
The evening of the 3d came at last; everything 
was in readiness, and we were awaiting the hour. 
A few moments before eleven Mr. Walters came 
into the ward and inquired if I was in ; then, see- 
ing me on my bunk apparently fast asleep, he 
passed out through the southwest door. 

Then Schroeder and I went into the cook- 
room, blankets in hand, where we found Carlisle 
and Mat. As soon as " All well ! " was sounded 



144 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

by the guards we slipped out, dropping our blank- 
ets at the guard's feet as we passed. The build- 
ing stood four or five steps from the edge of a 
deep ravine on the east, down the side of which 
we slid with as little noise as possible, following 
the course of the ravine to Dan River. 

I must confess to strange feelings when we 
stood outside the guard lines; my nerves were 
keyed to their utmost tension, and my whole being 
tingled with emotion and the possibilities of the 
venture. For nearly ten months we had been 
constantly under the range of guns ready to bore 
us on the least provocation, and now, under dark- 
ness of the night and still in close proximity to 
those same guns, we stood free, and yet not free, 
and possibly in greater jeopardy than as prison- 
ers. Yet even this foretaste of freedom made us 
leap with joy and thanksgiving. Our studied 
plan was to cross the Dan River as quickly as pos- 
sible and get it between us and the town, after 
which we would push our way in the direction of 
Lynchburg. On reaching the river an insur- 
mountable difficulty arose, because of the inability 
of Schroeder and Mat to swim. This was very 
annoying under the circumstances, a feature not 
on the programme, and one for which we had 
made no provision. The river was wide, deep, 
and swift in current. Farther advance in that 
direction was simply impossible, and it behoved 



TRAVELING BY NIGHT 145 

us to be moving, as we had partially to retrace 
our steps and to make a detour in order to avoid 
the hospital. Our only chance was to follow up 
the south side of the river, which at this point 
makes a bend in the direction of North Carolina. 

We heard the guards crying " Midnight and 
all well ! " — from which we judged that our escape 
had not yet been discovered. As we passed near 
the ferry, we unfortunately, as we thought, 
aroused a dog whose bark was taken up and an- 
swered by all the canine race for miles around, 
making us quake with fear, though in the end the 
chorus was an advantage, as it enabled us to 
locate habitations ahead, and so shape our course 
as to avoid them. 

Passing in a southerly direction until we struck 
the railroad running from Danville to Greenboro', 
we followed it for several miles and then struck 
off in the direction of the river. The surface of 
the country was very much broken, and, not being 
in very good condition to travel, we found it nec- 
essary to make frequent rests. Still, by the time 
the gray of dawn began to streak the east, we 
were some distance from the hospital, and again 
near the river, and, we judged, a ferry, as we 
thought we could distinguish the sound of a chain 
and the stamping of horses as they passed on and 
off the flat-boat. 

As daylight advanced we found a hiding-place 



146 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

in a fallen tree-top on a timbered hillside, which 
gave ns a good command of the road without 
danger of exposing ourselves. After eating a 
lunch we disposed ourselves to sleep, one remain- 
ing awake to keep watch. 

We lay low all day, scarcely daring to speak 
above a whisper for fear there might be listening 
ears. Our apprehensions were aroused by the ap- 
pearance of two unarmed men who halted and 
stood some time in earnest conversation in a 
ravine below and not over a hundred yards from 
us. Our Irishman was asleep, and making what 
we thought a tremendous noise snoring; but we 
did not dare to wake him lest he should make 
some exclamation that would lead to our discov- 
ery. The men carried on their conversation in 
such low tones that, while we could hear the 
voices, we could not distinguish what they said. 
After what seemed to us a protracted interview 
they separated, going in different directions. 
Their meeting thus, in this secluded hollow, 
and parting, as we thought, with some degree of 
caution, filled us with suspense, as we feared 
they might have heard of our escape and had 
some clew to our being in the woods. Thus we 
interpreted their separation to mean a more 
thorough search. We saw nothing more of 
them, however, and as the afternoon wore away 
we began to feel safe again. Toward evening, 



A PERILOUS '' FOURTH " 147 

however, a negro boy came into the woods calling 
cattle. He actually mounted the stem of the tree 
under which we lay, and stood so close that I 
could plainly see the white of his eyes, and at one 
time I thought he was looking right at me. If 
Mat, who was still sleeping, had given a lusty 
snore, our discovery would have been certain. 
We felt suspicious of the boy, for there had not 
been a cow in sight or hearing all day, and we in- 
clined to the belief that he was sent to draw us 
from our hiding-place. Night, however, closed 
around and we breathed easier. 

So passed the 4th of July, 1864, quietly, and 
yet full of excitement ; breathing the air of free- 
dom, and yet not free; full of the joy that hope 
brings, and still conscious that any moment might 
see our cup dashed in fragments at our feet. As 
the gloom of night deepened around us we ate 
another meal and congratulated ourselves on our 
success so far. We told Mat he would have to try 
and sleep without snoring so lustily. " And don't 
I try to do that same wid all me might ? " was 
his rejoinder. 

About ten o'clock we ventured out, going in 
single file, myself in the lead. We had arranged 
to travel thus for greater safety, as by keeping 
a sufficient distance apart we would not be 
tempted to carry on conversation. At the same 
time, should the leader fall into a trap, those be- 



148 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

hind might have time to make their escape. Still 
we kept sufficiently near to keep the next ahead 
in view, and the leader's movements were to be 
followed in every motion as near as practicable. 
In this way we reached the road near where we 
left it when taking to the woods at daybreak. 
Halting before I stepped out to see if all was clear, 
I heard some one, nearly opposite in the bush, 
speak in an undertone to his horse. I im- 
mediately struck off at a right angle, looking 
along the line to see if my movement was dis- 
covered by the one behind me. I saw them mov- 
ing by the flank ; but this brought Mat, who was 
in the rear, to the edge of a bank which, in the 
darkness, he did not observe until he found him- 
self rolling down with the noise of a young ava- 
lanche, counteracting all our prudence and filling 
us with apprehension, as we could hear him think- 
ing aloud in strong Hibernian accents. As no 
alarm was given, although the noise must have 
been heard by the party whom we were trying to 
dodge, this led us to believe that the mission of 
the two men to the ravine in the morning was for 
some sinister purpose, — probably horse-stealing, 
— and that they were probably as anxious to es- 
cape detection as we were. At any rate, they did 
not follow us ; so, continuing the flank movement 
several hundred yards, we again ventured for- 



A TOILSOME JOURNEY 149 

ward toward the road, where we halted for con- 
sultation. 

Our night traveling, though full of excitement, 
was very fatiguing, as we did not dare to follow 
public roads ; and travel through the timber, so 
near the river, made our way dark, rough, and 
broken ; sometimes we would get into a place so 
dark that we could not get out until we struck a 
match. We got some very severe falls and tum- 
bles over logs and into ditches, besides many en- 
tanglements in briars and thickets. Carlisle and 
Mat became discouraged. Our provisions, pre- 
pared before we left Danville, soon became 
mouldy and unfit to eat, so we had to make our 
stopping-places with reference to getting black- 
berries and huckleberries. Occasionally we 
found green apples, but we subsisted mostly on 
blackberries. Twice we found some small pota- 
toes, which we had to eat raw, as we never dared 
to make a fire. We suffered for water during the 
day, as we had no canteens to carry it in and did 
not dare to venture out in daylight to hunt for it. 



CHAPTER XVI 

FRIENDLY "" CONTRABANDS " 

IN this way wc traveled five nights; on the 
sixth evening, as we came from our cover 
after eating heartily of huckleberries, we came to 
a fence at the edge of some timber, and sat there 
waiting for the moon to rise. After fully dis- 
cussing the situation and the probabilities of suc- 
ceeding in our venture, I told them I thought that 
now we had better separate and go each man for 
himself, as it would be necessary to have more 
substantial food than we had been having for 
three days past, and our hopes of getting it were 
from the people, which we could do singly with 
less danger of being suspected than if we were in 
a squad. 

Mr. Schroeder, who was nearsighted, said with 
some Teutonic emphasis : 

" Mein Gott, Hyte ! I vill not at all consent to 
dat; I vill go mit you, for by myself I could not 
one ting do ; you must not tink of such a ting." 

He was a splendid fellow, had been a druggist 
in St. Charles, Missouri, and he and I had been 
together ever since our capture, and I was very 

150 



COMRADES OVERCOME 151 

loath to part with him. So I told CarHsle if he 
would take Mat I would take Schroeder and we 
would try in pairs. 

The traveling by night through the heavy 
dews generally kept our clothes very damp, 
and lying in them through the day was very try- 
ing and had given Mat a severe asthma that al- 
most disabled him ; besides, he weighed over two 
hundred pounds. He said he had concluded 
that he could not stand any more exposure, and 
would have to give himself up or trust himself to 
the mercies of the first house he could find. Car- 
lisle had developed an attack of rheumatism, 
which stiffened one knee so that he could scarcely 
walk. He said that if Mat would agree to it they 
would go over to the plantation quarters and give 
themselves up. We tried to dissuade them from 
so doing, and proposed that we should lay over 
another day, rest up, and skirmish around for 
something to eat. But they said they had fully 
made up their minds to the move and would carry 
it out. From our position on the fence we could 
see the dim outline of a house. They said they 
would go in that direction, and if after walking 
that far they did not feel differently, they would 
go in there. As the moon rose we bade them 
good-by and started. I told Schroeder we would 
go in the direction of the house and conceal our- 
selves and watch whether they came that way. 



15* A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

We had scarcely found a safe hiding--place near 
the gate when we heard them coming. Passing 
close by us they walked deliberately up to the 
front door and knocked, but we could not hear the 
story they told. 

As we were very thirsty we passed around the 
house near the negro quarters, where we could 
hear the darkies in full enjoyment of the even- 
ing's pastime, giving vent to their mirth in songs 
and laughter. We almost envied them their hap- 
piness. Striking a path leading into the river 
bottom, we soon came to a large spring, beside 
which lay a gourd inviting us to quench our thirst. 
From the character of the ground we supposed 
we must be near the river, and thought such a 
plantation would be likely to have a " little red 
canoe " tied up somewhere along the bank. We 
started to hunt it up. To reach the river we had 
to pass through a large cornfield. The soil was 
sandy and had been recently worked, rendering 
the walking extremely tiring. We failed to find 
a boat, and, to add to our troubles, a gun was fired 
at the mansion, which we interpreted to be an un- 
derstood cignal to arouse the country to be on the 
watch for travelers. This, with the extreme 
nerve tension caused by Mat's and Carlisle's part- 
ing, seemed to take away my strength. To con- 
firm our belief, we could hear voices in the direc-' 
lion of the river. 



PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION 153 

We seemed overcome with exhaustion, and I 
told Schroeder I could not go any farther. Col- 
lecting some willow boughs from the spring 
branch, we made a bed, and drew the tops of the 
corn together to make a shelter from the dew. So 
nearly had we exhausted our physical natures, 
weakened as we were by our past confinement and 
our recent fasting, that we soon fell asleep, — 
deep, restful sleep that held us locked in its em- 
brace until day began to dawn. In its increasing 
light we could see, not far off, a steep timbered 
bluff, and equally near, in another direction, the 
outline of the house. Already we could hear 
some stir in that direction and deemed a quick 
move to the bluff our safest course. As a retreat 
we found it all we could desire, and more than we 
anticipated, for blackberries grew in abundance. 
The thick underbrush and absence of any paths 
assured us we would be safe from observation; 
our previous night's rest rendered day sleep un- 
necessary, and we had ample time to collect our 
berries and lay plans for future action. 

The negroes were working all day in the corn- 
field below us, and a part of the time they were so 
near that we could hear their conversation. There 
were about twenty of both sexes, and we were 
highly entertained by their actions. There 
seemed to be a division among them, one body ac- 
cusing the other of having stolen a part of their 



154 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

rations; then a war of words resulted until their 
vocabulary of abuse was exhausted, and there 
would be a lull for a time. We heard them dis- 
cussing the action of our chums in giving them- 
selves up, and their expressions being favorable 
toward them gave us some hope. We could see 
that our presence had not been revealed by them. 

The overseer came out on horseback two or 
three times, each time carrying a large umbrella 
over him and accompanied by a big dog. The 
path lay right at the foot of the bluff, and so near 
that I could have tossed a stone on top of his um- 
brella had circumstances allowed such a demon- 
stration. The dog seemed to suspect our pres- 
ence, for as he followed his master he would stop 
every little while and sniff up our way, and then 
walk on with his nose in air as though he " smelt 
the blood of a Yankee man." We were glad 
when he left, as we did not dare to move for fear 
he would see us and push his investigations or 
draw his master's attention to his actions. We 
felt thankful to the intervening umbrella. 

I told Schroeder he must make up his mind to 
go over the river that night, and I worked all day 
preparing saplings from which to construct a raft. 
We had heard enough from the negroes to be- 
lieve they would befriend us if we could reach 
them without being seen by the whites. I made 



A FRIEND IN NEED 155 

up my mind to get down near the road, watch 
when they left in the evening, and hail them; yet, 
lest on close inspection I found an appeal imprac- 
ticable, I completed my arrangements for the raft, 
even to selecting suitable rails from a fence near 
by. Raft-building I found very slow work, hav- 
ing only a small knife with which to cut my 
withes and peel my bark. 

Toward evening I gathered my hat full of 
berries for our supper, over which we discussed 
the negro question in all its points, and concluded 
to trust them if we could hail one without letting 
too many into the secret. As the sun sank in the 
west they began leaving their work singly and in 
pairs. Getting a good position near the path, 
fortune seemed to favor us. As the next to the 
last one passed us, something became detached 
about his horse's harness, which caused him to 
dismount. I gave a low whistle, which made him 
look up. Seeming to apprehend the case at once 
he motioned me back. When the next one came 
up he told him to lead his horse along, as he 
wanted to go up on the hill a moment. Coming 
up to where I was lying, he said : 

" Get back, man ; don't be seen ; get back ! I 
knows who you is; get back! " 

"Well," I said, "who am I?" 

" You's a Yankee." 



iS6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

" Well, suppose I am a Yankee? " 

" I'll help you, but get higher up ; get back, and 
don't be seen." 

In answer to my signing for something to eat, 
he said : 

" We don't get very much, but I'll get you 
something; we only gets things to eat as they is 
issued to us each day," which accounted for the 
quarreling over the missing rations. 

" Now," said he, " I must go, or they'll 'spicion 
me. Lay low till it gets dark, then go up to de 
fence and follow it up till you come to de corner, 
den lay low till you's called for. Don't be feared ; 
ril help you over de ribber." 

We went near the place designated and con- 
cealed ourselves to await further developments, 
not wishing to venture too close for fear of 
treachery. Several negroes passed during the 
evening, but as they seemed unconscious of any 
expected presence we continued to " lay low " ac- 
cfrding to instructions, until near midnight, we 
judged, when a whistle was given from a clump 
of bushes not far off, which w^e answered by a 
similar whistle, at which a young colored man 
came up, asking : 

" Is you-uns the gemmens I's gwine to put ober 
de ribber to-night." 

We said we were. 



"POWERFUL HUNGRY" 157 

" Keep me in sight den," said he, " and don't 
be feared." 

He kept some distance ahead, walking very fast 
and passing by the spring, where we again 
quenched our thirst, not liaving drunk since we 
left it the evenine before. 

o 

'* Now, keep very quiet," he said, as he led us, 
at the foot of the bluff on which the house stood, 
down the edge of the cornfield, to a place not two 
rods from where we had searched the night before 
for a boat. Stopping, he gave a low whistle and 
received an answer from the weeds near by, from 
which our man, " Joe," made his appearance, pre- 
senting us with some bread and meat, which we 
put out of sight with an avidity that filled our 
sable friends with surprise and astonishment, one 
of them saying : " Golly, you-uns is powerful 
hungry, ain't you? 'Pears like you can't stop to 
chaw, but swallow it down whole-like," — which 
critical observation was about correct. We were 
ravenous, and Joe's fat bacon and hoe-cake were 
stowed away with surprising rapidity, I suppose. 

Our supper ended, from sheer lack of more to 
eat, Joe said that we had better get over the river, 
and led the way to a small bayou from which they 
brought a small canoe or dug-out, cautioning us 
to sit very steady or we might cause an upset. 
The current was rapid and about fifteen feet deep. 



iS8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

We found that the navigation of the craft was 
considerable of a task and required great skill to 
prevent upsetting. I thought then that if I had 
put my friend aboard the raft the chances are he 
would have found a safe mooring at the bottom 
of the river. 

It took a full half hour to make a landing some 
distance below, and then we started on. We 
asked about the boys ; and the darkeys said they 
had been sent to Greensboro that morning. The 
gun-firing was to scare the colored folks from 
raiding some ripe cherries. Joe said that if his 
father had been there he would have piloted us 
over the mountains, but he was then out on a 
similar expedition. Safely over, one of them 
went several miles with us to put us on the right 
track and " carry us around an old rebil," 

We were considerably elated at our success in 
getting over the river, but we found we had 
crossed near the confluence of another stream 
flowing from a northeasterly direction, which 
would throw us more in the direction of Danville 
than we wished. Its current was also, if possi- 
ble, more rapid than Dan River, and I concluded 
it \^as best not to try to cross that night, at least. 



CHAPTER XVII 
"'jugged^' once more 

IT rained hard all next day, but we bunked be- 
side a fallen tree from which we gathered 
sufficient bark to make a good shelter, and slept 
comfortably on a bed of leaves. In the evening 
we made another examination of the stream, but 
thought best not to venture to cross, so we 
quitted its banks to avoid the bluffs and traveled 
along a well-beaten road, stopping at daylight on 
a wood-covered hill, where we rested several 
hours before venturing out in search of berries, of 
which we found plenty, both huckleberries and 
blackberries. 

After satisfying the demands of appetite so far 
as berries could do so, as we could hear no sound 
to indicate proximity to a plantation, we thought 
Ave might venture to travel by daylight by keeping 
on the summit of the ridge and maintaining a 
good lookout, which the character of the ground 
favored. A little distance away ran the river, 
which by light of day did not seem so formidable. 
We concluded to try crossing, even if we went no 
farther. We found that by stripping off our 
clothing we could ford the stream, although the 

159 



i6o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

water was chin deep. Success in this venture put 
enthusiasm into us, and we concluded to go to the 
top of the next ridge, to see what lay beyond ; on 
reaching which we beheld — apparently a few 
miles distant — the rugged tops of the Blue Ridge. 
It was a glorious sight to us, and we were wild 
with delight as we took in the beautiful landscape 
spread out before us, with the mountains, most 
beautiful of all, for a background. 

From the very start they had been our hope; 
we felt that if we could reach them we would be 
free indeed. But it was a question whether we 
had better venture farther or lay by until dark- 
ness favored us, as we could see that the country 
through which we would have to pass had only 
narrow belts and clumps of timber, interspersed 
with fields of golden grain, which was even then 
being harvested, and we knew that our chances 
of being discovered would be very much against 
us. Yet our minds seemed unable to compre- 
hend anything but the mountains. For weary 
nights we had been toiling to reach them, and 
now a few hours' march would bring us to them. 
We suffered our better judgment to be overruled 
by our eagerness and continued on. Soon after 
noon we entered a thick undergrowth at the head 
of a deep ravine, which we afterwards heard was 
known as " Leatherwood Hole." Near by a 
number of negroes were harvesting oats, under 



BETRAYED i6i 

the supervision of an overseer on horseback. 
Crawling up behind some pine bushes to recon- 
noitre, I found myself unpleasantly near him, hav- 
ing only the bushes between us. I did not dis- 
cover him until I peeped from behind my screen. 
But the men were just preparing to start in on 
another round and had their backs toward me, — 
all save one old darkey, who, stepping back into 
the bushes, came right on to me so unexpectedly 
that I thought he was going to yell out, and mo- 
tioned him to keep silent. After asking him a 
few questions I inquired if he could get me some- 
thing to eat. He appeared so frank, though he 
was about the homeliest negro I ever saw, that I 
thought we could trust him. 

" Go down into the Hole," he said ; " the over- 
seer'll be back in a few moments and will see you. 
I'll come back this evening and see you." 

We concealed ourselves, and lay down to get 
a little sleep. Toward evening the darkey came 
around and asked what he should get us to eat, 
suggesting chicken as a part of the proposed bill 
of fare. I was watching him very closely while 
he was making his proposition, and noticed that 
there was a confused expression of the eyes that 
lacked the nerve of truth, and I said to Schroeder 
as soon as he left that I did not like the fellow's 
actions; that we must get out of there immedi- 
ately, or at least shift our position so as to avoid 



i62 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

surprise. We got up to start, when suddenly 
there sounded a " Halt ! halt ! " and a man with a 
gun cocked and ready to fire stepped out before 
us. At the same time another came up from an 
opposite direction, the negroes came in on all 
sides, and we were again prisoners. 

" Yankees, by God ! Hands up," said the elder 
of the whites, who proved to be the overseer, the 
other being his son. 

" Mein Gott ! dis is too badt," said Schroeder. 
wringing his hands in anguish. " Hafe ve again 
to go back to dose prisons. How can ve standt it 
to do so ? " It seemed to weaken him for a mo- 
ment and he sank to the ground, then, jumping 
up, he cried, " If only ve could have maked it to 
the mountains ; if only ve had not stopped in this 
tamd hole. Vhat vill ve now do! Vhat vill be- 
come of us! Dis is too badt, too badt, by Gott! 
I cannot standt dese tings ! " Then, looking up 
and seeing me unmoved, he said : " By Gott ! 
Hyte, how can you be so cool ? " 

Poor man, while I may have shown a calm 
exterior, he could not see what was passing 
through my mind. It was a terrible blow ; nearly 
ten months as prisoners in Virginia under the 
most favorable aspect of prison life had been ter- 
rible, and telling on us physically; but now we 
knew that Andersonville would be our destina- 



A CONSCIENTIOUS OFFICER 163 

tion; and, after all the hardships we had en- 
countered in our effort to escape, to be thus balked 
just as we thought our freedom sure, — and to 
be balked, too, by the perfidy of a negro, — was 
about all we could stand. 

Our captor's name was Ferguson. He said he 
was not expecting to find Yankees in the " Hole," 
but supposed we were deserters from the Confed- 
erate army, and he was very sorry he came onto 
us or tried to capture us. I told him he need not 
bother his mind on that point ; if he would give us 
something to eat and let us go, or even let us go 
as we were, we would take care of ourselves. He 
said he could not do that now, his men were all 
enrolled and sworn to keep military watch, and 
word would leak out that he had been helping 
prisoners to escape, and he would be severely pun- 
ished for such an offence. On learning my name 
he said that he had a cousin in Ohio married to a 
person of the same name. Several times on the 
way to the house he expressed regret at having 
captured us, but loyalty to the South demanded 
his turning us over to the provost marshal at 
Henry Court House. Arriving at his house, his 
wife brought us a supper of milk and corn bread, 
of which we ate heartily. We retained our appe- 
tites if we had lost our freedom. Our hunger 
appeased, and some of the bread remaining, Mrs. 



i64 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Ferguson told ns to put it in our haversacks, as it 
might be some time before we would get anything 
more to eat. 

We had nearly five miles to go to reach Henry 
Court House, and did not get there until about 
ten o'clock. I heard Ferguson tell the marshal 
that the darkey thought we were Confederate de- 
serters. He told us that if we had readied the 
mountains we would have been safe, as they were 
full of deserters, who were armed and could not 
be driven out, and that we were only seven miles 
from the mountains when we were captured. 
" Leatherwood Hole," he said, " is an unlucky 
place to hide in. Only last week I took in two 
deserters in there." This piece of intelligence did 
not add to our comfort or good will, though he 
seemed to intend it as a panacea to our disappoint- 
ment. We found that in the eleven days we had 
been out, owing to the perplexing drawbacks pre- 
sented by the river and the roundabout way we 
had been compelled to go, we were only forty 
miles from Danville, though we had traveled 
more than don1)Ic that distance. 

After taking our names and asking a few ques- 
tions, the marshal took us to Henry County jail, 
where we stopped a moment until he could find 
the keyhole in the dark. The door open, another 
moment's halt was made until lie could strike a 
match and light a piece of candle three or four 



AN IRONCLAD DUNGEON 165 

inches long. By this ghostly lightwe found ourway 
up a flight of stairs, through a hall, to a room per- 
haps sixteen feet square, to enter which we had to 
stoop, the door being only about four feet high. 
The floor of the room, sides, and ceiling were hewn 
logs to which were bolted wagon-tire irons per- 
haps five inches apart. The inside door was made 
of the same material, but the iron and wooden 
doors were separate, — one opening into the room ; 
the other, the iron one, swinging into the hall. 
To the centre of this one was attached an iron 
bar that fastened like a hasp over a staple in the 
centre of the hall, where it was secured by a pad- 
lock on the door. We took all this in at a glance 
by the dim light of the turnkey's candle, as he 
pushed us in with the assurance that if we at- 
tempted an outbreak he would put us in irons. 

The room already had ah occupant in the per- 
son of a negro. The door grated on its hinges, 
the heavy bolts clicked into their sockets, and we 
were in the blackest of darkness. By making a 
circuit of the room on our hands and knees, we 
found a place free from bars where there was 
room to lie down. It was not a question of find- 
ing the soft side of a board, but of finding a board 
free from iron bars. Placing our haversacks under 
our heads, we lay down to try to forget our sur- 
roundings in sleep. But as soon as quiet reigned 
we found ourselves in the most animated com- 



i66 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

munity possible. The room was alive with rats. 
They ran over us, whisking their tails in our 
faces, and pulling at our haversacks. The corn 
bread attracted them, and we found that we 
would have to make some other disposition of our 
pillows, so we put them on the stove that stood 
in the centre of the room. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

IN HENRY COUNTY JAIL 

WE passed a terrible night. The room was 
so filthy that we could hardly move with- 
out raising a stifling dust, and the rats were im- 
pudent and troublesome, giving us no rest. If, 
momentarily off our guard, we dozed, they would 
attack us in force. I had often read of tlie 
courage of rats rendered ravenous by hunger, but 
this was the only time I had ever had a practical 
illustration of it. Some time in the night I heard 
the negro go to the stove and fuss with the haver- 
sacks in search of something to eat, but I thought 
likely the poor fellow fared pretty badly, perhaps 
worse than we would, so I said nothing to cause 
him to think he had been discovered. 

As night waned, the rats drew off their forces 
and gave us comparative quiet, so that Schroeder 
fell asleep. The night's mystery was where so 
many rats could find hiding-places and ready in- 
gress into such a seeming ironclad. Daylight, 
however, revealed a pipe-hole under the stove, 
into which a post had been set at an angle of 
forty-five degrees. Up this post and through this 
167 



i68 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

hole they found ready communication from be- 
low. There was also a crack between the floor, 
and the log lining of the cell, giving them a har- 
bor between the walls. When daylight was fully 
come we found we were in a building whose outer 
wall was of brick a foot or more thick. Our bur- 
glar-proof room inside of this brick wall was lined 
with eight-inch hewed logs, closely joined and 
iron-clad as described. Two eighteen-inch-square 
windows (or rather holes, as they had no glass), 
heavily barred, — one on the east, looking into the 
court house yard and toward the town ; the other 
on the west, looking toward the mountains, — re- 
vealed the location of the jail to be in the outer 
part of the town on the edge of the woods. No 
buildings were visible from it. Our observation, 
of course, related only to this one room. There 
were a number of staples and rings in the floor, 
which the negro said were used in confining a 
former occupant who was insane, and who must 
have been a very Hercules, as we could see where 
he had twisted off several of the lining bars from 
the floor. When it became sufficiently light to see 
I asked Schroeder if we had not better eat a bite, 
and went to the stove for the haversacks. 

" Well," I said, " you've taken the bread out, 
have you ? " 

" No," said he, " I've not touched them since 
you put them there last night." 



" DE RATS IS MIGHTY BAD " 169 

" Well," I said, " what has become of the bread, 
then ? Did you take it, you black rascal ? Have 
you been at those sacks ? " 

" No, sah, I hasn't." 

"You haven't?" (stepping towards him). 

"No, massa; 'fore God I hasn't, massa; 1 
hasn't." 

" Well, what has become of the bread that was 
in them last night if you didn't take it? " 

" I don't know, massa ; indeed I don't ; 'spec, 
do, de rats done got it ; dey is mighty bad in hyer, 
dey is ! " — a fact I did not gainsay, and I accepted 
his version without further controversy. He had 
been confined there some days as a runaway and 
was awaiting the coming of his master. 

As I have said, from our west window we had 
a very good, though limited, view of the moun- 
tains; but they seemed to mock us as we looked 
first at them and then at our cell with its ironclad 
walls and double locks, its filth and stifling air, 
the small window openings being the only means 
of ventilation save when they left the inner door 
open. 

During the day a number of boys came around 
to get a glimpse of the " Yanks." It was amus- 
ing to see them circle around and watch the win- 
dow with open mouths. Finally, one little fellow 
asked if we had any " bone rings " to sell. I told 
him I had one I would sell him. 



I70 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

" Well, what will you take for it? " 

" Can you get me some onions? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" Well, bring me a dozen good ones, and I'll 
give you the ring." 

" Will you," he asked; " all right," — and away 
he went as fast as he could, with half a dozen boys 
at his heels. We had not long to wait until he 
returned with a bunch of nice onions, holding 
them aloft at arm's length and saying : 

" Here they are ! " 

" Well, how will you get them up ? " 

" Oh, I'll fix that." 

Going down into the depths of his pockets he 
brought up a string, to the end of which he tied 
a heavy nail and began the difficult feat of lodging 
it in the window so that I could reach it. After a 
number of efforts, in which they all had to try 
their hand, the task was accomplished. Stepping 
out so that I could see him, he said : 

" Now, you'll send it down, will you, if I send 
the onions up? " 

" Certainly," I said. 

Then I heard one of the boys say to him, " I'll 
just bet he won't when he gets hold of the 
onions." 

" Yes, that man will," said the little fellow, 
with a childlike confidence that would have com- 



AN ONION FEAST 171 

pelled a rogue to deal honestly with him. Then, 
stepping out so that I could see him, — " Pull," he 
said, " they are all right." 

And pull I did with an eagerness which only 
those in like circumstances could understand, the 
boys ranging in a row where they could see me 
take the bunch in. Then, taking the ring from 
my finger, I passed it down to him. 

" All right," he said, holding it up to view, and 
then examining it critically. 

" Well," I asked; " is it nice enough? " 

" Oh, yes, sir; nicer than I thought it was," — 
and away he went to show the folks at home a 
ring made by a Yankee prisoner, while we pitched 
into the onions, consuming them root and branch. 
I thought I never tasted anything better in my 
life. 

Noticing a number of cavalrymen riding rapidly 
by the jail and scattering as soon as they struck 
the open woods toward the mountains, as though 
in immediate pursuit of some one, I asked the 
boys what they were after. They said a deserter 
had escaped from the guard up town, and they 
were trying to head him off from reaching the 
mountains. We learned from the negro that an 
escaped Yankee had been confined in the room we 
were in about a week before, — he thought he was 
a sergeant. We looked around to see if we could 



172 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

not find some pencil-marks that would give a clue 
to the person, but there was no evidence to con- 
firm his story. 

A second night with the rats wound up our jail 
experience, and we were satisfied, — so completely 
so that in all the years since I have never felt any 
hankering after a repetition of it, nor can I tell 
how much that short experience may have in- 
fluenced me in striving so to shape my ways as to 
keep clear of jails forever. At any rate, it was 
my first and last peep inside one. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ACROSS THE RIVER STYX 

EARLY on the morning of the second day 
(Monday) before the light of dawn had 
penetrated the dark room, our door was opened 
and we were ordered to stand forth. As we had 
no special toilet preparations to make, no blankets 
to roll, or knapsack to strap, we were outside be- 
fore the order could be repeated. 

Being taken to a hotel near by, a cold lunch 
was given us, the scraps of which were put into 
our haversacks, and we were told we would draw 
our next rations at Danville. With this happy 
intelligence the jailer produced a pair of hand- 
cuffs and we were linked together, my right hand 
to Schroeder's left. This seemed like filling our 
cup of indignity until it ran over. 

In this way we were marched up the main 
street of the town, manacled together like crim- 
inals, with a soldier on either side. And this be- 
cause, in our devotion to our country, we had 
tried to take ourselves out of the Confederacy 
and escape the privations of prison life. I wished 
we could have paid our respects to Abraham Lin- 

173 



174 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

coin that morning as we marched along the street 
of Henry Court House under the inspiring in- 
fluence of Rebel bayonets. Certainly, we were 
becoming rich, if accumulating experiences could 
be called riches, and still these riches grew on us 
until we began to feel that the traditional " last 
straw " could not be far off. 

Our handcuffs were such as they used in man- 
acling slaves when they drove them to market, 
and consisted of a straight bar of three-quarter- 
inch square iron nine or ten inches long. The 
ends were rounded from a square shoulder long 
enough to take on a clevis sufficiently large to 
slip over the wrist, and then had a thread cut to 
receive a burr to keep the clevis in place. Such 
was our " jewelry," the indissoluble bond that so 
united us in sentiment and action, — the latter es- 
pecially, — that we moved in perfect unison, for 
the least irregularity in our movements caused a 
great deal of pain, the irons fitted so closely. 

Our guards, three in number, had a horse 
which they took turns in riding, and we were put 
to our utmost strength in marching, the heat 
being great and the road dusty. Once or twice 
they allowed us to stop and eat some blackberries 
that grew beside the road, and once, while resting 
beneath the sliade-trees in a dooryard, where we 
stopped to get water, an aged couple sitting at 
the door inquired who we were. On learning that 



KIND WORDS 175 

we were escaped prisoners being returned to Dan- 
ville, the old lady sprang to her feet, exclaim- 
ing,— 

" Poor fellows, how they have to suffer ! Won't 
you let me give them something to eat, — a bowl 
of milk and bread? They are human beings if 
they are prisoners ; they are not to be blamed for 
trying to escape." 

She brought each of us a bowl of milk and 
some bread, and said, — 

" Eat ! It will do you good ; you are welcome ; 
I wish I could do more for you. I know you see 
trouble enough, I feel sorry for you." 

" Yes, yes," said the old man, leaning forward 
on his staff. His long white locks reached nearly 
to his shoulders and his voice was tremulous with 
age as he said eagerly : 

" Eat all you want; eat all of it." 

I rather suspect there was a love of the " Old 
Flag " burning in the bosoms of that aged couple 
that refused to bow entirely to the new. The old 
lady shook hands with us when we left, as we 
thanked her for her hospitality. She said to the 
guards as we started on : 

" Don't abuse them men ; make it as pleasant 
for them as you can. They have a hard time of 
it and will have to suffer enough." 

Even Schroeder, who was much disposed to 
think that no good thing could come out of Naz- 



176 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

areth, said with more than ordinary appreciative- 
ness, " It is any vay a fine old lady, dat, and dat 
oldt patriarch, sitting dere leaning on his staff, 
saying ' Yes, yes, trink it up ; eat all you can/ it 
vas any vay a goot ting; it would have maked a 
goot picture, vhat ! " 

Many days after, when he and I were sharing 
the honors of Andersonville, the memory of that 
old couple would come, as an oasis in the burning 
desert of our experience, full of fragrance, to the 
mind. Their good was living yet in our hearts, 
and the circumstance was always referred to with 
reverence and gratitude. 

We reached Danville about ten o'clock at night. 
It took some time to call up the old ferryman, 
whose hut stood on the opposite side of the stream. 
I thought of Charon, Cerberus, and the river 
Styx as we stood there on the river's bank. Not 
a word was spoken. My thoughts went hither 
and thither as I reflected on the peculiarity of our 
position, and tried by speculation to penetrate the 
future and unravel the net that met us whitherso- 
ever we turned. Gloom, impenetrable gloom, 
covered us as the waters of the sea, and Hope had 
well nigh died within me. Yes, I felt like a lost 
soul, the last opportunity gone, standing on the 
dank borders of the river Styx. 

The waters soughing at our feet ; the sound of 
rattling chains, borne to our ears from the im- 



THE RIVER STYX 177 

penetrable gloom beyond; the boat, scarcely dis- 
cernible in the fog, that hung low above the 
waters, becoming more and more distinct in out- 
line as it neared our shore, revealing the spectre- 
like form of the old negro, as he '* poled" it along, 
accompanied by a stub-tailed dog, which had 
taken its position in the prow; our sad, weary 
forms awaiting their coming, to ferry us across 
into the world beyond the mist, — completed the 
similitude. Surely, I thought, a soul never reached 
the banks of that classic stream in a more used-up 
condition than we were when we reached Dan 
River that night, weary, footsore, and mentally 
and physically used up. I felt as though I had a 
twenty-pound ball in each groin and similar ones 
in the hollow of each knee-joint. The muscles of 
the calves of my legs seemed as though they had 
been twisted with a marline-spike. Every muscle 
in my body ached as though I had been pounded 
and my feet seemed leaden weights. 

We heard the guards crying the hour as we 
passed in sight of the hospital from which we had 
so recently escaped. It seemed as though it would 
be impossible to reach the town, so stiff had we 
become while stopping at the river, but we 
reached the end at last and were taken to head- 
quarters, where we hoped we would be released 
from our irons. In this we were disappointed. 
Finding the burrs a little loose, they took a 



178 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

hatchet and riveted them on, so they could not be 
removed save by cutting. This was done by 
Lieutenant Mews of the i8th Virginia Infantry. 
It seemed to give him intense satisfaction and we 
supposed he remembered how we had raised Dr. 
Hunter's ire against him, and this was a kind of 
petty revenge. In this condition we were taken 
to Prison No. i, then empty, and put in a corner 
on the second floor under the care of a corporal 
and two guards, whose instructions were to see 
that we did not leave the corner except as nature 
required. Handcuffed together, with nothing but 
the floor to lie on, our shoes serving as pillows, — 
you can form some idea of our chances for com- 
fort. We had of course to lie so as to favor our 
manacled wrists, which was hard to do, as the 
irons fitted so snugly that our wrists had no play 
in them, the slightest twist occasioning pain more 
or less severe. 

I told the corporal, when I heard his instruc- 
tions regarding us, that so far as we were con- 
cerned he might as well take his men and go to 
his quarters that night; that we could not get 
away, even though he left the door open, as I 
doubted whether, after we had lain half an hour, 
we could get down stairs if we tried. I know we 
could not have done so the next morning, as it 
was all we could do to stand when we got up. 



HANDCUFFED 179 

The guards were abusive in their manner to- 
wards us. One of them said our treatment was 
better than we deserved ; that we ought to be shot ; 
and that if we had stayed north, where we be- 
longed, we would not have got into any such dif- 
ficulty. I asked him very coolly if he did not 
think he ought to be at the front. 

" By God," he said, jumping up and taking his 
gun, " I have a notion to shoot you myself." 

" Yes," I said, " I should think shooting hand- 
cuffed prisoners would suit you better than run- 
ning the chances of killing some one at the front." 

When our rations were brought to us the 
guards would take the greater portion themselves. 
In this way they kept us for several days. Dr. 
Hunter came in several times to see us, but made 
no effort to get us released from our irons. 
Though he made no allusion to our escape, he 
treated us very civilly. Our wrists were swollen 
and became very painful, the irons partly burying 
themselves in the flesh, impeding the circulation. 
I presume they would have suffered us to lose our 
hands, which we would likely have done in a few 
more days, had hot a squad of prisoners been 
brought in from in front of Richmond to await 
transportation to Andersonville. There was 
quite a howl of indignation when they came in 
and found us handcuffed and suffering as we 



i8o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

were. It Wvis a revelation to some of them, and 
one not calculated to illumine their outlook, and 
several expressed a determination to try to es- 
cape on the way to Andersonville. Several set to 
work with an old case knife to try to saw the 
irons off. but had not made much progress when 
a man came in with a file and cut them off. I 
asked permission to keep the pieces. He said he 
had no instructions further than to file them off, 
and as they were ruined he presumed there would 
be no objection to my keeping them ; so he left 
tliem. but very soon an oflicer came in and called 
for them. I told him I would like very much to 
keep them. 

"What for?" he asked. "What benefit will 
they be to you? What will you do with them? " 

" Well." I said, " they will be of no particular 
benefit, so far as utility is concerned, but of con- 
siderable satisfaction to keep as a memento to 
show to my friends, — the jewelry I had the honor 
to wear for my country's sake and for an attempt 
to escape from a Southern prison. For this rea- 
son I would prize them highly." 

" Well, damn you." he said : " / want those 
irons, you have no business with them." 

" There they are." I said, pointing to where 
thev were lying; "if vou want them, pick them 
up." 



FALL OF THE FETTERS i8i 

He gathered them up and left. It is more than 
likely that many a poor slave had felt the weight 
of those handcuffs, but I think, when they fell 
from our wrists, that their power was broken. 



CHAPTER XX 

FROM DANVILLE TO ANDERSONVILLE 

NEXT day we were told to hold ourselves in 
readiness to move, and in the evening we 
started for Andersonville. Among the guards 
detailed to accompany us I noticed the one who 
passed us out the night we made our escape. He 
was very abusive to the boys, striking them or 
punching them with his gun if they did not move 
to suit his ideas. I also noticed the corporal (the 
one who had had charge of us in the corner) 
strike a man over the head with his ramrod 
simply because he happened to step a little out of 
line at one of our stopping-places. 

We frequently had to stop to allow the regular 
trains to pass. At such times there were gen- 
erally crowds around ; some attracted by curiosity 
and a desire to vent spleen where there was no 
danger of retaliation ; and others, prompted by 
speculative instincts, were on hand with pies, 
cakes, and such other luxuries as generally tempt 
soldiers. I found that the " Johnnies " were no 
exception to the rule. They would buy as long as 
their resources held out or trickery availed any- 
182 



CHICKEN PIE 183 

thing. The pie-venders were usually negroes, 
generally not over tidy in appearance, but their 
wares were bought without regard to previous 
associations. A hearty laugh was indulged in by 
all hands at the chagrin of one of the guards, who 
had bought a chicken pie of considerable promise, 
judging from its appearance, from a big darkey, 
' — " the last of his stock." I noticed that the 
vender seemed in a hurry to get away as soon as 
he got his money, but his head was clear. The 
purchaser sought a place in the shade where he 
could enjoy the pie at his leisure, but on opening 
it he found it contained nothing but the head, 
neck, and toes of a chicken. It was now evident 
why the darkey had seemed so anxious to get 
away. He was a living argument against the 
Southern cry of — " You can't larn a nigger any- 
thing." He had grasped the tricks of commerce 
and could bring profit out of adversity; he was 
surely learning fast. 

The cars used for our transportation were or- 
dinary box cars somewhat the worse for govern- 
ment usage. The guards on duty, two to each 
car, occupied a position on either side of the door ; 
only one door being kept open. As we had no 
lights this gave the boys a good opportunity of 
escaping as soon as it became dark, and quite a 
number made good use of the opportunity in our 
car. They cut a hole in the back end or corner of 



i84 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the car, so that when the train slackened on an up 
grade they could let themselves down at arm's 
length and drop. Eight or ten made their escape 
in that way before the leap was discovered. I saw 
one poor fellow who had jumped from a forward 
car rolling down a bank. A number of shots were 
fired at him, but with what effect we did not learn. 
The train was moving at a pretty high rate of 
speed, so that he must have received some injury 
from the concussion, if not from the balls. He 
made the jump as we were crossing a field, and 
rolled down the declivity as though he had been 
thrown with considerable force. He was left to 
himself, dead or alive. This occurred while we 
were passing through South Carolina. 

Our route was over the same road we had 
travelled on our trip to Richmond, ten months 
before. We could not see that the country 
showed any of the effects of war more than it did 
on our former passage through it, and we noticed 
that the farther we got from war's desolating 
footprints the greater were the insolence and 
braggadocio of the people. We could not help 
hoping and wishing that something might yet 
occur to humiliate them, especially those extreme 
Southern States that had been so zealous in pre- 
cipitating the war and urging secession on the 
rest of the Confederacy. All along our route we 
could see the negroes carrying on the labors of the 



THE SOUTHERN NEGRO 185 

plantation, and raising supplies for the soldier in 
the field, as well as providing for home comfort 
and consumption. While not enrolled as soldiers, 
they were nevertheless as important an element 
to Southern success as were the soldiers in the 
field ; for while the whites furnished the brain and 
sinews of the war, the negro furnished the rations 
without which no army can be kept organized. 
One was as necessary as the other. Trusty ne- 
groes would look after the interests of the sol- 
diers' families, so that the men at the front had 
no anxiety for the welfare of the home circle to 
worry them. In this respect the South was pecu- 
liarly prepared to carry on warfare as long as 
they could keep their internal organization intact 
and keep the contending armies in the border 
States. Any one traveling behind the scenes, as 
we were, could see how necessary this sable ele- 
ment was to the South. In fact, they were as 
much enrolled, so far as effect was concerned, in 
the Southern cause, as were the negroes who were 
bearing arms for the North. 

The South seemed to look upon the arming of 
the " nigger " by the North as more of an insult 
to their chivalry than anything else; for while 
they were willing to give their lives, if necessary, 
in defence of secession, it was repugnant to them 
and grossly humiliating to have that rich blood let 
out by a bullet from a " nigger " soldier. Hence 



i86 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

we wished, almost to prayer, that old Mars might 
set his iron heel in this heart of the Confederacy 
and make his presence more severely felt, and 
even while we were thus speculating the same idea 
was taking tangible shape in the brain of General 
Sherman, at Atlanta, to be consummated a few 
months later. 

Having safely delivered us at Andersonville, 
the guard returned to Danville, reporting to the 
" boys " there that I had tried to escape again by 
jumping from the train, and had been shot. They 
even brought forward the person who had com- 
mitted the laudable deed in attestation of the 
truthfulness of the report. He said he had shot 
me through the head, killing me instantly, and 
he gave the minutiae in a most plausible manner. 
These " boys " being soon after exchanged, one 
of them, a Mr. Thurston, with whom I had been 
c[uite intimate, wrote my friends regarding my 
death, and sent them several mementoes 1 had left 
when I escaped from the hospital. He had no 
doubt of the correctness of a report coming so 
direct. I suppose the object of the yarn was to 
intimidate others from attempting to escape, as I 
was well known to all our comrades at Danville. 



CHAPTER XXI 

ANDERSONVILLE 

WE reached Andersonville about the 25th of 
July, 1864. This now historic place was 
simply a railroad station on the road from Macon 
to Americus, the settlement consisting merely of 
six or eight houses, mostly military necessities, 
and an unfinished church; the whole being sur- 
rounded by dense pine woods with a heavy 
growth of underbrush. The stockade was located 
about half a mile east of the depot, in plain sight, 
looking down the stream that arose near the town 
and passed through the stockade after receiving 
another branch from the north side of the town. 
We were marched from the train across the 
brook spoken of to a double log house situated 
southwest of the stockade, but nearer than the de- 
pot and in full view of the north side of the interior 
of the stockade. The house was partially sur- 
rounded by earthworks, quite a force of negroes 
being then engaged on their completion. We 
were drawn up in line in front of the house and 
held there some time in the beating rays of the 
July sun. Some of the boys were sitting in the 

187 



i88 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ranks when a tall, wiry, nervous-looking man, 
with prominent teeth and dressed in a white linen 
suit though without a coat, came out of the house 
with a roll of papers in his hand. His first salu- 
tation was : 

" Get in de ranks dere. Got damn you, get in 
de ranks, or you shan't have a got-damned mouth- 
ful to eat to-day. Guardts, vhy in hell don't you 
standt dem up; get up dare. I say, py Chesus 
Christ, vhen I vants you to set down I tells you." 

This was our introduction to Captain Wirz, 
the scapegoat of the whole South, and the only 
rebel of the outfit upon whom the hand of justice 
fell to the extent of life; and he was a subaltern, 
one around whom circumstances had thrown the 
web of fate, in the interminable meshes of which 
he had become entangled. As the guardian spirit 
of Andersonville he was responsible to other and 
higher powers. He was unfortunately possessed 
of a nature that would have done no discredit to 
Satan himself; and he was as utterly devoid of 
feeling and as remorseless as Hell. By these at- 
tributes he was peculiarly fitted to fill the position 
of a tormentor. Why, I ask, was such a man 
chosen, and by whom chosen, to take charge 
there? Does not the editorial spoken of in a 
former chapter fix the actual responsibility? 
While Wirz was a man who could faithfully 
execute a piece of work assigned to him, his was 



SCAPEGOATS AND CAT'S-PAWS 189 

not the mind to plan such a scheme and give it 
shape from chaos. Not at all. Wirz never planned 
Andersonville. It was an idea conceived in 
Richmond, deliberately planned and theoretically 
studied in all its probable details, in the council 
chambers of Jefferson Davis at the Capitol of the 
Confederacy. The men there knew whom they 
were putting in charge at Andersonville, and the 
qualities of heart and mind that fitted the man for 
the position, and they were not disappointed. 
But, I ask any candid man, was it right that Wirz 
should hang and they go free? It seems to me 
that Justice herself might have dropped a tear 
over his grave, as she beheld the end of that 
simple though too pliant tool in the hands of 
crafty workmen. Retributive justice had already 
claimed one life by apoplexy in the person of Gen- 
eral Winder, and another one, since, in the person 
of Ross, by the burning of a hotel in Richmond. 
Turner, I think, also met a violent death. But 
they all were merely cat's-paws in the drama. 

We were kept standing in the sun so long that 
several of the boys were prostrated by the heat 
and became insensil^le. Finally, after taking our 
names and assigning us to squads, we were sent 
to the stockade. The view we got of the inside 
from the higher ground as we passed to the south- 
west corner and along the west side across the 
brook to the north gate was anything but assur- 



iQo A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ing, and we felt as though our march had some- 
thing of the tragic nature of the charge of the 
famous Six Hundred. 

The stockade was a quadrangular enclosure 
containing about thirty-two acres, its longest di- 
mension being from north to south. The stream of 
water spoken of ran through it from west to east, 
dividing the tract unequally; the southern por- 
tion containing about one third and the northerly 
one the balance. Each side sloped to the stream 
with good drainage ; that on the north being grad- 
ual, while that on the south became more abrupt 
as one neared the water, especially on the east, 
where there was quite an abrupt bank with a 
small level plot bordering on the stream, the only 
really level ground in the stockade. On either 
side of the stream the ground was very moist for 
perhaps a hundred feet, the northerly portion be- 
ing a black mucky swamp, the water apparently 
oozing from the hill side forming what, at the 
locating of the prison, was a redwood swamp, 
difficult to cross. The rest of the ground had 
been covered with a dense pine forest which was 
cut off to procure logs for the stockade. The 
swamp could be crossed by jumping from tuft 
to tuft, on either side of which the slimy mud 
was knee-deep. There was a regular crossing of 
logs at the west side next to the " dead line," but 
wc did not always avail ourselves of this, pre- 



THE "DEAD LINE" 191 

ferrinjB^ to run the risk of missing our footing in 
jumping from sod to sod. 

The palisade, or wall, was made of pine logs 
set on end in the ground as close as they could be 
set, about fifteen feet remaining above ground. 
The entrance was by two gates, each sufficiently 
large to admit a wagon. Both were situated on 
the west side, one leading into the southerly di- 
vision, and the other — the main entrance — into 
the northerly one. These gates were protected by 
a small square enclosure on the outside. Out- 
side of all this a second line of palisades had been 
commenced, but was never completed, save a por- 
tion on the south and west sides. The greater 
portion of the trench had been dug, but was suf- 
fered to fill up — through lack of energy I sup- 
pose. Twenty feet from the wall on the inside 
all around, except at the gates, was a four-inch 
line of boards nailed flat on the top of a row of 
posts projecting three or four feet from the 
ground. This was the celebrated " dead line," 
to go between which and the stockade was to 
enter the court of death. No guard would miss 
the chance of a shot by ordering us out. They 
all seemed filled with the Indian's desire to add 
Yankee scalps to their belts. 

On the outside, near the top of the wall, and 
perhaps two hundred feet apart, accessible by 
steps from outside, were the sentry-boxes, so built 



192 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

that the top of the wall was about waist-high to 
the guard. Thus they could see all that was going 
on within and have a breastwork from which to 
shoot in case of an outbreak. The waters of the 
creek, soon after passing the dead line, were 
made to pass through a crib extending nearly 
across the enclosure. Here were the sinks, and 
the water served to keep them clean, the only 
provision for cleanliness or evidence of care in 
the whole outfit, and I have often wondered how 
even this was thought of. Just above the stock- 
ade on the west, near the north entrance, stood 
the cook-house, a board shanty in which were a 
furnace and kettles for doing the cooking, and an 
oven for baking our corn bread, which was done 
by a detail of our own men. All the filth of this 
passed into the stream, making the water so foul 
that it was not fit to drink. The stream also re- 
ceived all the filth and wash from the Rebel camps 
and sinks. 

Near the southwest corner outside, and within 
the second line of palisade, was erected quite a for- 
midable lot of stocks for the punishment of minor 
offences. (The method of general punishment was 
to cut off the rations of the squad offending, or of 
the whole camp if necessary.) The stocks, which 
provided for neck, feet, and wrists, were so ar- 
ranged that the culprit could be invested in all 
at the sanic time, and being out in the hot sun 



PRECAUTIONS AOATNST ESCAPE 193 

without shelter of any kind must have been a first- 
class purgatory to the unfortunate offender. 

Within the earthworks surrounding the house 
first spoken of were a bomb-proof magazine and 
several pieces of artillery planted to rake both 
sides of the stockade. On the west side, near 
the north end, v/as a similar earthwork mount- 
ing a number of guns bearing on the south 
side and gates, while on the north and east 
were rifle-pits and several more field guns. In 
all, fourteen pieces of artillery stood ominously 
pointing to some point of the prison, and ready, on 
the slightest provocation, to belch forth the mis- 
siles of death at close range. Near the northwest 
corner, on the road that led to the cemetery, stood 
a number of shanties, one of which was occupied 
by a well-trained pack of bloodhounds, under the 
supervision of a man whose duty it was to circle 
the camp every day, to take up the trail of such as 
might have escaped from the stockade or from 
those who were outside. He had these dogs 
trained to the sound of a cow's-horn hunting- 
horn. 



CHAPTER XXII 

MY FIRST NIGHT IN THE STOCKADE 

SUCH was Andcrsonville, and our feelings, 
as we made the march to the north gate, 
cannot he imagined. As it swung open with a 
loud creaking noise that could be heard all over 
the camp, what a view of misery met our eyes! 
Great God ! could it be possible that this motley, 
haggard crowd that pressed around us had once 
been soldiers fit for presentation on inspection 
parade. The gate closed behind us, and we were 
of them — were shut in. No one but those who 
have had similar experiences can have any con- 
ception of the fearful import of those words 
" shut in." And no pen, however graphic, can 
give a description that will convey to the unini- 
tiated mind more than the vaguest idea of the 
horror and misery that centered in the " Prison 
Pen at Andcrsonville." 

My spirit groaned as I stood looking over the 
crowd of weary, tattered, emaciated forms, that 
gathered about us eager for news from without. I 
use the term " weary " as best suited to convey to 
the mind the haggard, forlorn, absent look im- 

194 



"ANY NEWS OF EXCHANGE ? " 195 

printed on the countenances of most of those sur- 
rounding us. Grasping us by the hands they 
would ask, " Any news of exchange? " 

Exchange! The forlorn hope, the weakening 
hawser that bound many of them to life, the day- 
star for whose arising they had so long hoped, al- 
most against hope, and no wonder. The night 
had been long and dark, the angel of Death had 
laid a heavy tribute upon them, and his seal was 
already set upon many more. It w^as a sickening 
sight even to me, accustomed as I had been to 
prison horrors. Heretofore, however, my obser- 
vations had been confined, to small numbers — 
less than a thousand ; but here were collected over 
thirty thousand of the most tattered, dirt-be- 
grimed, squalid-looking men the world ever be- 
held! 

But it was not ours to bring words of comfort, 
and, as the afternoon was fast passing, we had to 
busy ourselves in hunting up the squad to which 
we belonged, as we well knew that upon this de- 
pended our getting the little that would be issued 
to us to eat, and among that multitude it was no 
small matter to find the sergeant of a squad of 
ninety men. By diligent inquiry we at last found 
where it met for roll-call once a day, in the morn- 
ing. This was near the northeast corner of the 
stockade. The sergeant, however, was located on 
the south side. 



196 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Having ascertained this much, it became neces- 
sary for us tn find a place to spend the night, — 
simply a place to lie down. For you must remem- 
ber that no shelters were prepared by the Confed- 
erate government for our comfort at Anderson- 
ville. There were no neat whitewashed houses, 
such as I had seen at Camp Chase, Ohio, in the 
prison for Southerners, with its nicely laid-out 
streets, — none of these. The Confederates hav- 
ing completed the stockade, their only further care 
was in effect to use the vulgar phrase, " Root, 
hog, or die," which, simmered down, amounted 
to this : 

" If you can't make yourself a shelter out of 
nothing, lie out in the rain and dezv and hot sun.'* 

Thus I could account for the scant clothing on 
the men. They would cut off the legs of their 
trousers and the sleeves of their coats, rip them 
up, and sew them together to form a shelter from 
the heat of the sun by day — for it beat with an 
intenseness against those sandhills — and the 
heavy dews at night. The nights being cool, 
while the earth retained its heat, a very heavy dew 
was precipitated, sufficient to dampen a person's 
clothing through. While this might have no dele- 
terious effect in one night, a continuation of it 
through weeks had a marked effect in producing 
the fearful cases of diarrha?a and pneumonia 
which proved so fatal there. 



DUGOUTS 197 

Many of the boys we noticed had dugouts or 
subterranean houses, which were treacherous sub- 
stitutes at best, frequently caving- in, — in several 
instances that came to my knowledge burying the 
inhabitants alive. As I looked around that even- 
ing I noted the many devices made use of in the 
erection of shelters. I felt that my chances for 
one were most dubious. Blanket I had none, and 
no clothing but m}^ s-.hirt, trousers, and blouse, and 
even if I had had anything to spare, I had no 
sticks with which to erect a shelter. I felt gloomy 
enough as I wandered around just as night be- 
gan to settle around us. 

We finall}^ found a place where we could lie, 
and here Schroeder and I spent our first night in 
Andersonville. Heavens ! What a dreary place 
as the quiet of night gathered over it, and the 
motley multitudes settled to rest! The stars 
seemed to look kindly down upon us from the 
depths above, and that was all. We had no cover- 
ing but our clothing and the broad canopy of 
Heaven ; our covering was blue, and so were we. 
Yet we slept as well as could be expected. I had 
been suffering from chronic diarrhoea for some 
time, and the trip from Danville had so nearly 
worn me out that I was prepared to enjoy rest, 
even under these adverse circumstances. 

I had asked several of the boys to share our 
bed, and to cheer them up as we disposed our- 



198 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

selves to the best advantage I told them that we 
need have no fears of falling- out of bed, nor of 
the underpinning giving way, and, as to our bed- 
room, the ventilation was most excellent. Schroe- 
der, through whose mind ran visions of our recent 
handcuffing, said : 

" It is any how an improvement on our con- 
dition in dat tamned corner in Danville, hopplet 
together like oxes. Ve can any vay turn ofer 
vithout havjng to say If you blease, or Py your 
leaf. Py shingo, dat vas tough ! Vhat ! " 

I must confess I felt but little like commenting. 
I had seen enough in my passing around to con- 
vince me that there were few, if any, redeeming 
points in our present quarters. What we had to 
meet was too plainly stamped upon the counte- 
nances of the multitude who had thronged around 
us on our first entrance into the stockade, and \ 
knew that in that crowd I beheld the best condi- 
tioned men of the community. If our eyes could 
have penetrated the frail shelters and seen the 
abject misery concealed by them, it would have 
made our blood run cold. In my wanderings I 
had stooped down and looked into a number, and 
my eyes had seen enough to convince me we had 
reached the culmination of Confederate skill in 
human torture. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MEETINGS WITH OLD FRIENDS 

THE earliest light of dawn found me awake, 
somewhat stiff, but, refreshed by my 
night's rest, I was ready to start on a tour of 
investigation. As Schroeder seemed comfortably 
resting in the embrace of sleep, I did not dis- 
turb him, but started out alone. Already the 
camp showed considerable life. Picking my way 
among the little shelters scattered irregularly over 
the ground ; now and then stepping over a sleep- 
ing form whose bed, like mine, required no par- 
ticular care ; passing an occasional one engaged in 
preparing his morning meal from the debris of 
yesterday's rations, and others lost in the earnest 
effort to make a cup of coffee from burnt crusts, 
I came to the swamp, which for a time checked 
further progress until I had seen several of the old 
inhabitants cross by stepping from clump to 
clump. It was a terribly filthy place, many going 
no farther than this to attend to nature's call. 

Once across, I came to a squad engaged in 
performing their morning's ablutions. The water 
in the stream being too filthy for use, they were 

199 



200 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

dipping from a hole that had been dug in the sand 
near by, into which the water filtered. It was a 
delightful morning, the air at this early hour be- 
ing cool and fresh. Asking one of them if he 
would kindly pour some water onto my hands 
while I washed, " Certainly, certainly ! " he said. 
After I got through I found I had not taken the 
wiping into consideration, and began wringing 
the \\'ater from my hands. 

" ITerc," said my new friend, '' Use my towel." 
— handing me a piece nf nn old blouse. " How 
does it come," said he, " that I've never seen you 
before in here. I thought I had seen all the boys." 

I told him that as this was my first appearance 
on the stage at Andersonville, having only arrived 
the evening before, it was not remarkable. 

" What, just came in? " said he; " where have 
you been all this time? " 

I told him at Danville Hospital. 

" Well," he exclaimed, extending his hand, 
" we'll shake hands then." 

My mind was busy at work trying to place him, 
as it is always embarrassing for one to present 
himself in that friendly way and then have to in- 
troduce himself. Finally I ventured: 

" Is it you, Rose? " 

" What is left of me, certainly. Why, didn't 
you Icnow me? " 

I never had had any special acquaintance with 



FELIX 20I 

him, but remembered him as being located near 
the " Hole in the Wall " at Pemberton Building, 
Richmond, his feet and mine having been neigh- 
bors there when we lay down. 

Rose was a representative character. I am sorry 
I cannot name his regiment. He first attracted 
my attention in Pemberton by being a close stu- 
dent of his pocket Testament and an observer of 
its teachings, — a genuine Christian under adver- 
sity; pure gold, tried in the fire. His light had 
not grown dim through all the ups and downs of 
prison life. 

Leaving Rose, I passed on up the pitch on the 
cast end of south, and sauntered along, thinking 
of the old squad at Pemberton, and directing my 
t teps toward the only two trees that remained in 
the stockade, — two very large pines near the 
southeast corner. My course led me close to a 
fellow who was busy blowing up his fire under his 
pan (all old prisoners will understand what this 
means), and my proximity caused him to look up 
into my face. Then up he jumped and grasped 
me by the hand with both of his, exclaiming, — 

" Hello, steward! How are you? " 

"Felix, by the life," I exclaimed; "how are 
you, old boy? " 

" Where did you come from ? — when did you 
get in? — where have you been?" — came so rap- 
idly that I had to let him get through before I 



202 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

began, — " as to getting in, why, I arrived last 
evening." 

" In that squad that came in so late? " 

" Yes." 

"Where did you sleep?" 

" Over on the other side." 

"Where's your blanket?" 

" Have none." 

"Didn't sleep out, did you?" 

" Have a faint recollection of so doing." 

" Why didn't you come over here? " 

" Sure enough," I said laughing. 

" That's so, that's so," he said, seeing the point. 
" But here's my tent, I must make room for you 
under it. My partner was taken out to the hos- 
pital yesterday, and you may take his place, al- 
though he gave it to another. We must make 
room for three." 

The thanks with which I accepted Felix's hos- 
pitality came from a full heart. Here, very un- 
expectedly to myself, the question of a shelter was 
settled in a manner that seemed providential. I 
had not met Felix since I parted with my squad 
at Pemberton Building for the hospital, nine 
months before, — nine dark, eventful months. 
How many comrades we could name who had 
patiently endured the bitterness of Rebel hate, 
while the wick burned low in its socket, and re- 
lief came at last through the gates of Death, — 



SCURVY AND DIARRHOEA 203 

" and yet," said he, " we are still alive." Then, 
as I made inquiry for this one and that one of our 
old squad, some had died, several had been ex- 
changed, and several, besides myself, were in An- 
dersonville. 

" By the way," he said, " I^ick and John, of 
your regiment, are just down the street in the first 
tent on the left as you came up the bluff." 

I went down immediately, and, stooping down 
in front of their quarters, whistled. They had not 
got up yet, but John was awake, and, seeing me, 
gave Dick a punch or two in the ribs, saying, — 

" Dick, Dick, wake up, here's Hyde, the 
steward ! " 

Dick needed no second punching, but bounded 
out in a hurry to meet me. But John, poor fellow, 
could only hold out his hand. " You'll have to 
come in to see me," he said, " I can't get up. I 
can't walk." 

He was a German, John Zigler, one of my hos- 
pital mess, as was Dick, whose name was Mains, 
and we had made many a hard day's march to- 
gether. I could see by his blackened gums and 
hue that he was fast yielding to scurvy, and, as 
I learned he was suffering from diarrhoea in con- 
nection with it, I knew he was correct as he said 
mournfully, " Well, steward, the jigs are about 
up with me." Then he showed me his swollen, 
purple-colored feet, on which the skin shone al- 



204 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

most like a mirror, and his limbs drawn up so he 
could not straighten them. " They will never 
take me out of here alive," he said. " I know 
that. I don't know what I would do if I did not 
have Dick to wait on me and take care of me." 
No medical man had ever seen him, nor medicine 
been administered to relieve his sufferings. 

Dick and John both said I must come and bunk 
with them. They had plenty of room, death hav- 
ing made vacancies within a few days. I tuld 
them Felix had given me room with him, so i 
guessed I would remain there; but I had a com- 
rade I would like to shelter with them. 

"Bring him right along; he's welcome," was 
their hospitable invitation. 

As the sun V\as about rising I started to hunt 
up Schroeder, proud of the success that had at- 
tended my ramble, and desirous of introducing 
him to his new home. I had some difficulty in 
finding my sleeping-place, as the camp was all 
astir and the croval changed the appearance of 
things. I finally spied him, pacing to and fro on 
a short beat, his hands clasped behind his back, 
his favorite attitude when perplexed. 

" Mein Gott! " he said, " I am any vay glad to 
see you once more. Vhen I vaked and found you 
vas gone I did not know. I thcuight somebody 
must have carried you off vhile you sleept. 
Vhere, any vay, have you peen dis early? " 



A TOUR OF THE STOCKADE 205 

I told him how I had run across Felix, who had 
kindly given me a place in his tent. 

" By jingo," he exclaimed, " dat is goot! I am 
any vay pleased mit dat." 

Then I told him I had found him a place too, 
and led the way across the swamp. It seemed as 
though he had never thought that far ahead, and 
followed me without saying a word, though I had 
so studied him that I could tell by the twitching 
of his facial muscles that he did not dare to ex- 
press himself just then. 

When I got back, Felix was " waiting break- 
fast for me," as he said I would get hungry before 
I drew my rations. After breakfast he said : 

" Come, let us walk around while it is cool and 
see the city. There is more to be seen here than 
you have any idea of, and you will have to see it 
to realize it. We'll go up to Main Street and walk 
out toward the south gate, leading off by one of 
the pine trees along a zigzag way euphoniously 
called Main Street." 

While we were slowly walking along, busy in 
recalling the events of the past nine months, I was 
suddenly seized by my blouse collar and whirled 
completely around. 

"Can't hear a fellow holler, hey?" was the 
shout that accompanied a grasp of my hand. I 
found myself face to face with Williams, a Ten- 
nesseean, who had been a member of my ward at 



2o6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Danville, and to whom I had given a good blanket 
when he left for the prison again to be transferred 
to Andersonville. 

" Well, I'm plumb beat this time ; why in the 
world are you in here? I thought you were done 
exchanged months ago? " 

" Haven't been here long ? First walk down 
Main Street," I said. 

" Well, it's a mighty hard place. They are kill- 
ing off a power of the boys ; a heap of the D.iiville 
boys have done gone since we came here. Have 
a drink, this is my ranch? " 

Dipping down into a barrel, he took up a cup 
of what he called " beer," but which was nothing 
more than corn bread and water that had stood 
until it soured. 

" It's not much of a drink," said he; " but it's 
mighty good for scurvy, and I kind o' like it." 

I thought myself it was not much of a drink, 
but I gulped down a swallow or two out of charity 
to his good will. 

" Come down and see mc," continued Wil- 
liams ; " I stay down thar," pointing out his 
tent. 

Felix told him I had come among them entirely 
destitute, save for what I had on my back. 

" Come right down to my tent," reiterated Wil- 
liams, " I've got an extra cup you can have. I can 
get along without it. Do you recognize that?" 



GETTING SETTLED 207 

said he, tapping his tent as he stooped to crawl 
under, " that's the blanket you exchanged with 
me, and I tell you I've seen the good of it too." 

We crawled under the tent and spent some 
time talking over Danville times and my escape 
and recapture. Little as these circumstances ap- 
pear now, they were momentous then, and I love 
to recall them. Those friendships welded with the 
hammer of adversity were indissolubly joined, and 
amid the wreck and ruin of those dark hours they 
stand forth as bright stars in the depths of ether, 
each one sending forth its silvery ray to illume the 
path of memory, and I would not have one of 
them blotted out until all are swept away to- 
gether. 

"Ah!" said Felix as we passed back to our 
quarters, " I tell you that's a fine thing," — point- 
ing to the cup. "I've often felt the need of just 
such a cup since I've been in here. I tell you it's 
good and will add to our stock of utensils." 

Our water-bucket and soup-pail consisted of 
boot-tops with wooden bottoms fitted into one 
end. The signal for roll-call being given, I has- 
tened over to find my squad, and it was no small 
matter, n< Iwithstanding I thought I had so 
thoroughly located it in my mind that I would 
have no difficulty. The sergeant told me my ra- 
tion would be rertdy in about two hours, and that 
I must have something to put it in. 



2o8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

My first ration in Andersonvillc was a piece of 
corn bread about as large as the half of an ordi- 
nary brick, a small piece of bacon, perhaps three 
ounces, supposed to be cooked, and half a pint of 
rice boiled without salt. The bread was simply 
meal and water mixed and baked without salt. 
The cooked meat, I noticed, had not been heated 
hot enough to kill several skippers that flipped out 
of it. 

Felix, like some patriarch of old, was sitting in 
the door of the tent awaiting my return. 

" Well, what did you draw, — something first 
rate?" he inquired. "A big ration, eh? We'll 
have to put them together and I will make a 
' rolla pot.' " 

"A what?" I asked. 

" A rolla pot," returned he. 

" Proceed," I said, " if you know what you are 
talking about, — I don't." 

" That's an Andersonville luxury," replied 
Felix; "a thing born of circumstances, and I 
have given it that name for want of a better. 
You see," he continued, " if you leave that bread 
until morning it will be sour, so I take out all the 
soft part and roll it into balls this way," — suiting 
the action to the words by rolling the bread in the 
palms of his hands into balls about an inch in 
diameter. " These." said he, " I put into some 
water in the stewpan with some of the meat, and 



A"ROLLAPOT" 209 

boil the whole together, which makes it all the 
more palatable and cooks it so that it will keep. 
Besides," he continued, " you'll find most of the 
meat we draw is so strong that you can't eat it. 
A little of the rice, added to the soup, makes that 
endurable and helps to fill up. Then I have the 
crust left to make coffee." 

While he prepared the " rolla pot " I busied 
myself in splitting out some pine slats about an 
inch wide and eight inches long, which I wove 
together after the fashion of basket splints, and 
made me a substitute for a plate. This was the 
only plate I had while I remained in the stockade. 
For a fork I used a sharpened stick, and for a 
knife a stick made into a wooden spatula which 
answered all ordinary purposes, as we had no 
occasion for carving. I found I had been very 
fortunate in becoming one of Felix's household, 
in more ways than one. Being one of the " orig- 
inal settlers " he had secured a pine stump, roots 
and all. This he had stored behind his tent, next 
to the dead line, where he could watch it, every 
splinter being valuable. When we got through 
cooking we gathered up every particle of wood 
and put out the fire, laying the charred embers 
carefully away till next time. That you may bet- 
ter get an idea of the value of fuel I will note a 
little conversation between us to that point. 

" What are those fellows doing over there in 



2IO A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the swamp ? " said I, one day, directing Felix's 
attention to a dozen or more persons who were 
wading around in the mire and filth, fuddling 
around with their arms buried up to their shoul- 
ders and feeling carefully as if in search of buried 
treasures. 

" Why," he said, " they are hunting for red- 
roots to cook with." 

" Red-roots! " I echoed, — I suppose in a doubt- 
ing tone. 

" Yes, red-roots. When we first came in here 
that swamp was covered thick with red-wood 
bushes as high as your head, or higher, and so 
thick that a rabbit could not get through them. 
Now it is as you see, — every inch has been worked 
over dozens of times, two feet below the surface, 
in search of bits of roots to cook with. Tough, 
isn't it?" 

Tough! Good Heavens! Think of those fel- 
lows thus working over those four or five acres of 
filthy swamp in search of the smallest fibres of 
roots, while just outside the stockade walls on 
the east and south were thousands of cords of the 
best of pine wood, and hundreds of cords of tree- 
tops the butts of which had been felled in pre- 
paring the pen. These tree-tops had been 
dragged off the prison ground, and now lay out- 
side, going to waste, although the prisoners would 
gladly have collected them if they could have had 



WELL-DIGGING 21 r 

permission to do so, under guard. With teams 
this valuable fuel could have been brought inside 
and divided so as to give all an opportunity of 
working over their ration. The only excuse the 
authorities vouchsafed for not permitting this was 
that too many of the boys got away, and that they 
traded and became too intimate with the guards 
and might plan an outbreak. Weak subterfuges ! 
If they had but said, " It is not the will of the 
Confederate government that you have that much 
added to your comfort," they would have struck 
the nail square on the head, for that is the only 
reason those poor fellows had to gather roots 
from the swamp. I made it my business to in- 
vestigate all that when I was out on parole, and 
I could attribute the whole thing to nothing but 
" cussed meanness," well studied and scrupulously 
applied. There is not a person who was confined 
there but will testify that the condition of the men 
might have been bettered a hundredfold without 
one cent of cost to the Confederate government. 
Owing to the bad condition of the water supply 
the boys had dug a number of wells, some of them 
forty and fifty feet deep. The sand was of such a 
character it did not cave in a perpendicular wall. 
The digging was all done with knives, and the dirt 
was drawn up in boot-tops. Of course the sand 
favored the work, but to supply so great a number 
with good drinking-water was Ijeyond the power 



212 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

of the wells, and there was considerable suffering, 
with no hopes of anything better as the weather 
became hotter and the grounds outside became 
filthier. 



i.:. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

" BEAN SOUP ! HOT BEAN SOUP ! " 

^^X'hJKLL," said Felix, after we had break- 
V V fasted the second morning, " let us con- 
tinue our walk around the city. We did not get 
far yesterday." 

Passing on the same street as before at the 
south end, near or quite against the dead line, 
we came to an extensive enclosure of evergreen 
boughs and brush. *' That," said Felix, " is the 
Masonic Temple." The square and compass were 
suspended over the door. Going on to the south 
gate he pointed to a box nailed on a post. " That," 
said he, " is the Post Office." 

"What? do they allow you to send out let- 
ters?" 

" Oh yes, just drop them in there unsealed, and 
they will take them and look over them to see if 
there is anything contraband; if not they send 
them through by flag of truce." 

" Chalk them one," I said, " that's more than I 
would have given them credit for," — and more 
than they deserved, as I found out when I got out- 
side; for the letters seldom got farther than 
213 



214 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Wirz's quarters, where they were thrown into a 
box, and when it got full they would send them 
heavenward in the form of smoke. Occasionally 
they would send a lot off — I suppose to keep up 
an appearance with our government; but the 
greater portion were burned, and I was really 
glad the boys inside did not know this, as writing 
letters seemed to cheer them up and to bring them 
into communion with home. 

Passing down the west side we came to the log 
crossing. Here I noticed quite a fine spring of 
pure water close to the dead line. 

" There," said Felix, pointing to it, " look at 
that pure water running there, and see in it one 
of the strongest evidences of an over-ruling Prov- 
idence that could be given. Call it a miracle or 
what you will. Now," he said, '' look at the brook 
covered with grease and slime where it comes into 
the stockade. When we first came in here that 
was what we had to drink, — cook house slop, 
drain from rebel camp, and what not. We could 
not stand it and went to digging wells to secure 
drinking-water, but well-digging with our means 
was slow work, and we could not supply anything 
like what was necessary. So it continued up to a 
short time ago, when one day that spring burst 
out, and has continued to run, as you see it now. 
Look down either side of the stream and tell rne 
where it could have been better located." 



HORS DE COMBAT 215 

" That's so ; it is freer from any possible filter- 
ing of filth here than any other place you could 
put it!" 

" Yes. Well, now look again, and tell me if 
there is a more unlikely spot for a spring to break 
out. Why did it not break out in the middle or 
on the edge of the swamp on the north side, or in 
that naturally springy depression on the south 
side ; or, finally, why did it break out at all ? " 

Surely God had not forgotten them, and had 
mercifully interposed in behalf of the boys at An- 
dersonville. I took a cup from the hand of one 
who had just been drinking, and, stooping down, 
dipped up a cupful and drank it, feeling that I had 
partaken of the fruits of a miracle as truly as did 
Israel's famishing hosts when they drank of the 
stream that gushed from the smitten rock. 

Leaving the spring we passed up near the north 
gate, where were located a number of our old 
Pemberton and Danville boys. Here we found 
" Michigan Steve," whom we used to call " the 
fighting-cock," on account of the ease with which 
he could get into a muss and the indifference he 
always manifested as to whether he came out first 
or second best, so long as he kept his hand in. 
Poor fellow ! We found him hors de combat, his 
feet atid legs drawn up so that he could not 
walk and almost black with scurvy ; his spirit was 
broken, and he pointed silently to several sup- 



2i6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

purating sores on his heels and to several toes al- 
ready sloughing off. He died soon after. 
" Newt," my old smallpox friend, was looking as 
fair as any of tliem, though he was troubled with 
scurvy. I had to take dinner with him, as he said, 
for old acquaintance' sake. 

" Here you are," said an old man, extending 
his hand. "Williams" (the Tennesseean) "told 
me you were in here, and I've w^atched for you 
and tried to find you. Do you remember me? I 
was in your ward at Danville, and when I left 
you gave me this blanket," — referring to his tent, 
— " and told me I would need it when I came 
here. I've thought of it so often. It's all the 
shelter I've had." (It evidently pleased the old 
man to think that I remembered him.) "Come 
around and see me often," he said, as I started 
away, " it's all we've got to do in here." 

This calling around was of decided benefit to 
all of us; it helped us to get away from present 
sufferings ; and, as we generally recalled the amus- 
ing phases of prison life, we enjoyed many a good 
hearty laugh, which was as good for us as a tonic. 
I found that Felix was right when he said 
" there's lots to see in this place." Almost every 
time I passed around I found something new, — 
some phase of suffering, some development of 
genius or character to surprise one, old friend- 



"SPECULATIONS" 217 

ships to renew. One day I ran onto an old Dan- 
ville friend named Rohrer. He, like Felix, was a 
member of that class known as " oldest inhab- 
itants," having been among the first who came 
to Andersonville in what the boys called the palmy 
days of the old stockade. From them I learned 
that when it became necessary to enlarge the 
stockade, — which was done by adding to the nortli 
end, — details were made from among the boys 
to do the work. These details soon got the name 
of " speculations," — a word that may need some 
explanation, as the terms " Andersonville " and 
" speculation " would not seem to imply condi- 
tions that could be brought together. 

Human nature has certain distinctive features 
inherent to the whole class, and a desire to get 
hold of the greatest possible amount of the cir- 
culating medium of commerce characterizes man 
everywhere, but this characteristic seemed spe- 
cially developed in the prison guard at Anderson- 
ville. Their palms itched to close on greenbacks 
(at any rate the authorities gave that as a reason 
for searching us so often, that we might not cor- 
rupt the guards). 

So with greenbacks these details could buy 
beans, flour, rice, bacon, potatoes, salt, soda, — in 
fact, almost everything in the eatable line. These 
they managed to get inside the enclosure and sell 



2i8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

to the newcomers, or " Fresh Fish," as they 
termed the new prisoners who were being brought 
in from the front. 

By a special condition of surrender a large force 
taken in North Carolina had been allowed to re- 
tain all their equipage except guns, and, having 
been recently paid off, were well supplied with 
money. It was a hard matter for them to stomach 
the rations issued. They had not been gradually 
brought down to them, as the old prisoners had, 
and, rather than eat them so long as their means 
held out, they would buy biscuit, boiled eggs, bean 
soup, and such other things as the speculators 
had to offer at fabulous prices. For instance, for 
one dollar a prisoner might buy any one of the 
following items : three small raw Irish potatoes ; 
a spoonful of salt ; a spoonful of soda ; three bis- 
cuits ; or a pint of bean soup. A quarter of a pint 
of the latter commodity cost forty cents, and soup 
seemed to be the staple of trade. It required con- 
siderable of a purse to maintain such a style of 
living for any length of time. But when the purse 
was empty there was the ordinary ration to fall 
back on. . 

The main street on the north side, leading from 
the gate, was dubbed Commercial Row, from its 
being the place where these things were offered 
for sale. At almost any hour in the day you could 
have heard the cry, " Here's your place to buy 



" BOXES FROM HOME " 219 

good bean soup! Hot bean soup! Bean soup, 
forty cents a dish ! " At other places you got the 
raw material at wholesale. Of course the regular 
ration could be traded in part payment, and these 
would be worked over. By this trafficking some 
of the speculators accumulated sums ranging 
from a hundred to fifteen hundred dollars, and 
some few even more. 

It was not the retailers who made the money. 
Their object was to eke out their other rations. 
It was my opinion that much of the goods was 
taken from boxes sent by friends in the North and 
opened at the connivance of, and perhaps by, the 
officials themselves. I will give an instance to the 
point. While in Danville one of the boys in Prison 
No. 4 received a box from home which was open 
and had evidently suffered evaporation to a fearful 
extent before it reached him. The authorities 
claimed that the boxes were opened in Richmond, 
in order to guard against arms being conveyed to 
the prisons, and that if anything had been taken 
out it was taken out there. Among other things 
left in the box were three boxes of essence of 
coffee, which the receiver eked out with great care ; 
but alas ! an order came in for him to turn over 
the balance of that essence of coffee, from which 
we have a right to draw our own conclusions. It 
showed very conclusively that Major Moffit, or 
some one under him, had appropriated the missing 



220 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

articles and had found one item at least so good 
that he wanted more. 

It was somewhat amusing to observe the 
earnest energy with which the soup-venders fol- 
lowed their business. Commercial Row had been 
partially graded to make a roadway for the 
wagons that brought in the rations, in conse- 
quence of which there was a bank of a foot or two 
elevation on the upper side. Along on this the 
dealers were located as close as convenience would 
admit, each one with some kind of vessel by his 
side, full of bean soup, while near at hand he had 
another setting over a fire in a trench, in order 
that his soup might always come up to the 
standard of " hot bean soup." Here, always in 
the same place, as though they held the respective 
lots by deed or lease, from early noon until late 
in the evening, they would sit and cry their wares. 
Some were fortunate enough to possess a blanket 
to make a shade, but generally they sat in the hot 
sun. For me they were subjects to study. I used 
frequently to go along the Row and watch them 
at their work. No merchant on New York's 
Broadway ever put more vim and zeal into his 
business, involving millions, than did these fellows 
along that bank. Theirs was certainly a laudable 
zeal. It was a case of life or death. As I have 
said, they did not make much, but they managed, 
by very close work, to keep up their original 



COMMERCIAL ROW 221 

stock, each day's profit going to support life. 
God knows they were worthy of greater success, 
but they were content if the day's work left them 
a good dish in excess. They earned it by the 
sweat of their brows if ever men did. They were 
not remarkable for cleanliness, and, dressed in 
their filthy tatters, some of which required great 
ingenuity to keep together on their person, would, 
in the outside world, have been termed objects of 
disgust. Barefooted and bareheaded, with inter- 
mediate spots of nakedness, taken all together, 
they made the most serio-comic scene ever pre- 
sented of the most abject poverty and misery 
struggling for an existence, and it is to be earn- 
estly prayed that the world may never have it 
duplicated. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE EXECUTION OF THE RAIDERS 

THE opportunity presented for obtaining with 
money an indemnity against starvation by 
means of the wares offered by the soup-venders 
rendered a class of men within the stockade so 
desperate that they did not hesitate to commit 
murder in order to procure a little money. They 
were called " raiders." Their actions became so 
intolerable that no man's life was safe who was 
suspected of having money, a watch, or any other 
valuable. A number of murders had been com- 
mitted; several men had been found dead in their 
tents, with their skulls smashed by clubs; and 
others were brained on their way to the spring 
after night. 

Such cases were on the increase. To meet this 
a police force was secretly organized and gotten 
into systematic working order. Emboldened by 
success, the desperadoes became more open in 
their work, so that the leaders, six in number, 
were ferreted out and captured. They were all, 
I believe, foreigners. They were given a fair 
trial, and after a careful examination of all the 



. A FEARFUL SCENE 223 

witnesses they were adjudged guilty and con- 
demned to die by hanging. A copy of the pro- 
ceedings (their defence, the testimony of the wit- 
nesses, the findings of the jury, and the ruhngs 
of the court) were sent out to the prison author- 
ities, who sustained the verdict and sentence and 
sent in suitable timbers and tools for the erection 
of a gallows, together with the proper appendages 
for such a ceremony. 

On the nth of July, 1864, the miscreants were 
executed simultaneously. The rope of one broke 
by the force of the drop, and he made a desperate 
effort to escape, fighting with the energy of des- 
peration rendered terribly intense by the exper- 
ience he had already had. It was not until he 
had been cornered in the northeast corner of the 
stockade that he was again secured and dragged 
back to the gallows, which had been erected near 
the south gate. The wretch pleaded for his life; 
he prayed for mercy; he appealed to the con- 
sciences of his executioners ; but there was no eye 
that dared show pity in that crowd of men, who 
had been rendered desperate by the bloody deeds 
of the criminals. The executioners forced him up 
the steps onto the drop, readjusted the cord about 
his neck, and swung him off alongside his now 
lifeless companions. It must have been a season 
of extreme mental agony to him, as he was made 
to ascend the second time in view of the distorted 



224 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

countenances of his companions in crime and pun- 
ishment. 

Thus ended the most thrilhng episode of in- 
ternal dissension occurring during the history of 
prison hfe. All breathed easier after this. The 
bodies of the executed men were cut down and de- 
livered to the outside authorities, by whom they 
were interred in the cemetery in a separate trench, 
their names and manner of death being marked 
on headboards. The memory of the scene was 
sufficient to deter any of their followers from 
committing further crimes. The police force, 
however, was maintained after that, the members 
being remunerated by an extra ration each day. 
They were recognized by their batons (about 
eighteen inches long) looped to their wrists by 
leather straps and very good order was main- 
tained by them, everything considered. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

SCURVY 

THERE was quite a religious element in An- 
dersonville that lived in spite of the quench- 
ing tendencies of our surroundings and kept alive 
the spirit of the good Samaritan. So far as they 
could they met generally twice a week, near our 
quarters, for religious worship and consultation. 
I have heard some very fine exhortations delivered 
at some of these meetings; possibly the uncouth, 
rugged sources of the oratory added force and 
impressiveness to the efforts, but the exercises 
were really interesting. I often wondered that 
the guards, from the stations near by, did not 
sometimes respond with a bullet when they heard 
invoked the protection of an Arm mightier than 
man's, in that dark hour, for those neglected 
by their country because of their starved, diseased 
condition and the prime condition of those whom 
they offset in the prisons at the North. The fires 
of patriotism burned still in their bosoms, and 
they prayed for the nation and the President, I 
thought sometimes, with an eloquence that I never 
heard excelled. 

225 



226 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

There was a majesty in that little band that 
challenged the admiration of all who heard, and 
not a word was uttered or an action committed 
to thwart their work ; nor did it end in that simple 
though sublime evidence of faith, as shown by 
their meetings. Many a poor soul was comforted 
by them, and when he became too weak to care 
for himself they ministered to him so far as 
they were able. Though the aid afforded may 
not have been more than the bringing of a cup 
of cool water, it was that much given in the spirit 
of kindness and love. They were a noble set of 
men, true alike to their country and their God. 

Every day I became more and more convinced 
of the truthfulness of Felix's remark, " There is 
a great deal to see and learn in Andersonville." I 
saw some new feature every day. It was a good 
place to study human nature. We had represen- 
tatives from all parts of the globe, nearly, — even 
to the American Indians. Inured, as we generally 
suppose them to be, to filth and privation, Ander- 
sonville was a dose too strong for them, and many 
passed from its horrors to the " happy hunting- 
grounds." 

I tried to become acquainted with every nook 
and corner of the pen and to see all that I could 
of its suffering thousands. I found that my first 
surmises were correct in regard to the condition of 
the men being more dreadful than a person would 



DYING BY INCHES 227 

guess by standing at a given point and over- 
looking the moving multitude. Hundreds died in 
the pen who never had any medical care whatever, 
but had to drag out a miserable existence with no 
attempt being made by the authorities to alle- 
viate their sufferings. Imbedded, I might almost 
say, in filth ; too much reduced to be able to care 
for themselves; swarming with vermin; their 
bodies eaten in many instances into repulsive 
sores, and their scalps eaten raw by lice, — these 
literally skin-covered skeletons made a sight that 
was sickening to look upon. Fancy limbs discol- 
ored by scurvy, which in some cases had caused 
the toes to slough off, and even the feet also, in 
several instances; men dying by inches, — yes, 
literally dying by inches, — and watching the de- 
cay with a sad melancholy that no pen can de- 
scribe! Indeed the pen that could describe such 
sufferings would have power " to paint the dying 
groan." 

Especially did this condition apply to the " old 
prisoners," by which term I mean those who had 
seen long captivity. I am positive that I am safe 
in saying that nine out of ten were to a greater 
or less extent affected. Many of them were be- 
yond walking; in many cases their legs were so 
drawn up that they were unable to straighten up, 
and had to crawl on their hands and knees. 

I found an old schoolmate, Thomas Barnes, 



228 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

a bugler in the Thirty-first Ohio Infantry, in 
this condition. Poor fellow ! though unable to 
stand alone, he was trying to keep alive the vital 
spark by selling tobacco, in this way getting a 
small pittance to invest in food. I could see each 
time I visited him, which was nearly every day, 
that he was fast nearing the last grand camping- 
ground, " the bivouac of the dead." I tried to 
get him to go to the hospital, but he said it was no 
use, though he finally consented to go, and died 
soon after. 

It was no uncommon thing to see men wander- 
ing in idiocy, — reason, sense, feeling, all dead. 
This was the saddest of all sights to me. It 
seemed as though their souls had already taken 
their departure, leaving the clay tenements to 
gradual decay. Others again, in apparently as 
good condition as any of us, and rational in gen- 
eral conversation, could not remember their regi- 
ments or the command to which they belonged, 
while still others could not remember their own 
names or where they came from. 

The great exposure to night air, coupled with 
insufficient food, had produced night-blindness in 
a great many, so that as soon as the sun set they 
were in total darkness until the sun rose again. 
Such unfortunates had to remain wherever sunset 
found them, if they had no friends to lead them to 
their quarters. So far as I could trace such cases, 



EATEN ALIVE 229 

they invariably died in a short time after this con- 
dition appeared. I asked one of them if there was 
pain connected with it, or if there was any sense 
of weariness to the eye. He said there was not ; 
that the sensation was just as if he had suddenly 
been taken from daylight to the depths of a cave 
where no light penetrated ; he could feel the dark- 
ness as a terrible reality, — a proof, I thought, of 
the possibility of the " outer darkness " spoken 
of in Scripture. 

Chronic diarrhoea, the sequence of scurvy, was 
terrible, and in its worst phases disgustingly re- 
pulsive. Numbers were so far gone with it, that, 
their limbs being as described above, they could 
not get to the sink, and were compelled to dig pits 
beside their beds. Others, again, having no con- 
trol over the action of their bowels, were being 
eaten alive by worms and flies, and dying in their 
own filth. I have seen cases where it appeared as 
though the victims had tried to crawl to the sink, 
had become exhausted, and lain down in the hot 
sand and died. Coming across the swamp on the 
east side one day, and reaching the flat already 
spoken of, I found Rose engaged in washing a 
man whom he had found in a dying condition. 
Apparently he had become exhausted in trying to 
drag himself up the pitch in the path and had 
fallen back to die. His eyes, nose, mouth, and 
ears were full of worms, and he was still groan- 



230 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ing. I asked Rose if he knew him. " Only as a 
human being needing Iielp," he said. Where, oh 
where, rests the responsibihty ? 

These are terrible jDictures to review after the 
lapse of a few years, — revolting pictures. Yet 
I am recording only what I have seen with my 
own eyes and passed through in my own experi- 
ence. But oh, how painfully, how impressively 
real they were to me then, when I knew that the 
same fell destroyer was fast mastering me. How 
like mockery it sounded to me as I lay awake 
nights and heard the guards calling, " All is well." 
These sights were all inside the stockade, where 
there was no medical treatment given, and where 
all were supposed to be able to care for them- 
selves. 

I conversed with several persons, while in the 
stockade, who claimed to have cured their limbs 
even after scurvy had made considerable progress. 
Their manner of procedure was to dig a pit in 
the moist sand, divest the parts of all clothing, 
and then get into the pit and pack the sand about 
them. This operation they had to undergo for 
a number of days, and each application was con- 
tinued during several hours. They said the earth 
appeared to draw the poison out of the system. 
The swelling of scurvy is of an cedematous 
character, and it is possible that the pressure of 
the packed sand might cause a scattering of the 



A CURE FOR SCURVY 231 

poison and aid the kidneys in eliminating it, as 
being buried to the hips would prevent or at least 
retard the collection of fluid matter below the 
pelvic cavity. I had no reason to doubt their 
statement and simply give it as a nut for physi- 
cians to crack. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

SEVERITY OF THE GUARDS 

HAD become so accustomed to startling reve- 
lations in my walks and talks around the 
camp, that I had grown into a state of being sur- 
prised at nothing. I was startled one day, how- 
ever, by the unexpected report of a guard's 
gun near where I was walking on the west side, 
south of the spring. Running quickly I saw two 
men reel and fall just above the spring on the 
north side. On strict inquiry the only solution 
of the matter that could be given was that in 
trying to dip up a tin cup of water one of the 
prisoners had reached under the dead line, and the 
guard had, in shooting at him, overshot suffi- 
ciently to strike into a squad of six or eight men 
who were standing twenty-five or thirty feet away, 
wounding two of them. Either that, or it was in 
harmony with an order that had been issued by 
Wirz, that the guards should fire into and dis- 
perse any undue collection of men near the gates 
or dead line, and that squad was sufficient to fill 
the spirit of the order. In either case it was cold- 
blooded murder. 

232 



FISTICUFFS 233 

Nor was this the only case of shooting that had 
occurred. I had been told of a number more, but 
this was the only case witnessed by me. No man 
but a devil incarnate could or would do such a 
thing, and I always have felt that those who did 
the shooting ought to be brought to trial though 
it took years to find them. Such an order was 
altogether uncalled for, because in the densely 
crowded condition of the stockade it was an im- 
possibility to prevent collecting in squads. In fact 
we were an almost solid squad of thirty thousand, 
make the best disposition we could of ourselves. 
In truth, room was so scarce that wheelbarrows 
were sent in, and ground was made by wheeling 
sand from the north side and dumping it into the 
swamp. In this way considerable room was made, 
which was always taken up as soon as leveled off, 
though it certainly must have been very produc- 
tive of disease and an unpleasant building spot, 
so near the filth and stench. Yet this ground was 
in great demand, causing many fisticuff affairs 
among contestants for possession. In a com- 
munity like ours, where it was every man for him- 
self, and rights were necessarily on a narrow 
basis, muscle was frequently brought into action, 
though never with any serious damage to the bel- 
ligerents, as the average fighting weight was very 
light. I saw two fellows quarrelling over a site 
on the newly reclaimed territory, each claiming 



234 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

it by right of priority. Words not being suffi- 
cient, they finally resorted to blows and were mak- 
ing very fair headway when one of them, not 
giving heed to the ground, went over, full length, 
backward into the swamp. His opponent, jump- 
ing in astride of him, soon pummelled him under. 
When the " under dog " arose he was the most 
comical sight for a human being I ever saw, and, 
I dare venture, as sweet-scented a one. The spec- 
tators enjoyed it hugely and dubbed the fracas 
" The Battle of the Swamp." The mud-immersed 
individual received such various names as '' The 
Swamp Angel," " The First Fruits of the An- 
dersonville Resurrection," " Eclipsed Glory," 
'' Buried Animosity," and other such euphonious 
titles, calculated, as they said, to make a man feel 
good and look kindly on defeat. 

Old Captain Wirz sometimes made his appear- 
ance inside the gate, and then arose such a groan- 
ing and crying of " Carry him out," " Kill him," 
etc., as would have to be heard to be realized. I 
really think he was afraid to venture any farther 
than just inside, unless surrounded by a strong 
guard, and I think, also, that he had reason to be 
afraid. 

I have often wondered why they had no Con- 
federate flag floating over us. They had a very 
nice flagstaff, but during my seven months' so- 
journ there I never saw the flag once; nor do I 



INSECT PESTS 235 

remember seeing any regimental flags, though I 
think the several regiments composing the guards 
were home guards. There were also two com- 
panies of artillery. 

Our condition during a rain was very trying, 
as very few of the shelters would turn water, es- 
pecially such showers as sometimes fell, when the 
water seemed to come in solid sheets, wettinjj 
everything, even our beds or sleeping-places. The 
sandy soil soon dried off, so we had no mud. The 
rains during hot weather were accompanied by the 
most terrific thunder I ever heard. During one 
storm the lightning struck four trees standing 
close to the stockade. Sometimes we stripped off 
our rags and took a genuine shower-bath. This 
served, to some extent, to keep down the sand- 
fleas. These were a terrible pest ; the sand seemed 
full of them. Mosquitoes were another source of 
annoyance, the swamp being a breeding-place for 
them. Those who had not sufficient clothing to 
cover their limbs suffered from this source very 
much, as mosquito-bites on limbs affected by 
scurvy were very likely to run into terrible sores. 
We all looked as though we had smallpox, but the 
helpless and weak were especially tormented by 
these pests. 

Here was a good place to study the endurance 
of men. I found that the Indians confined there 
.were not enduring as well as the whites. They 



236 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

stayed very close to their quarters, however, and 
were not given to exercise as much as the whites, 
which might possibly account for their lack of 
stamina. So, also, I found that the marines were 
less hardy than infantrymen, and succumbed much 
more readily to disease and the privations of scant 
and inappropriate food. The small, medium- 
sized, and spare men stood it better than those 
given to corpulency, and single men better than 
the married ones, on account of the latter wor- 
rying over thoughts of their families. Strangest 
of all, those who were naturally physically weak 
were far in advance of those who boasted of their 
muscle and laughed at trifles when we were first 
taken. 

There was a great tendency to rheumatism 
and renal diseases. Sand-itch was also prevalent 
and extremely annoying, especially so when, as 
sometimes happened, the men's thighs would be- 
come so encrusted that they had to lie on their 
faces to get any comfort at all. The patience of 
the men under these heavy afflictions was heroic 
and remarkable. They seldom gave way to out- 
bursts of feeling against the foolish and unwise 
policy that was keeping them there as prisoners, 
though we all knew it was the veriest nonsense, 
no matter what excuse the commissioners of ex- 
change might give in extenuation of their course. 
If the voice of argument would not convince, the 



GRANT'S RESPONSIBILITY 237 

voice of humanity should have been heard, and 
the Federal Government could well have afforded 
to grant the Confederacy all they asked, as it 
would thereby have given a much more enduring 
evidence of care for its defenders than it did in 
suffering them to remain subject to months of 
rebel torture. By so doing it would have heaped 
coals of fire upon the heads of the enemy. As 
it was, the chances were for the North to lose 
prestige. The Confederacy had nothing to lose. 
It had not even established a character, that it 
could be stultified. A retrospect of the war re- 
veals many mistakes, chief among which was the 
policy that abandoned us to our fate as prisoners 
rather than give in exchange for us " men in 
good condition to put in the Confederate army." 
General U. S. Grant, more than any other man, 
was responsible for our condition, or, rather, re- 
tention, as he strongly disapproved of exchange 
for the reason given above. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

A LUCKY CALL 

AS I was becoming weakened by chronic diar- 
rhoea and crippled up by scurvy I was very 
reluctantly compelled to abandon to a great degree 
my habit of " looking around the city," and to 
confine my walks to narrower limits. These tours 
had afforded a kind of melancholy satisfaction and 
pleasure, and I hated to be compelled to give them 
up, not only on account of this pleasure, but for 
the graver reason that it was an evidence that my 
vital forces were weakening. While I never for 
one moment thought I would die a prisoner, this 
giving way indicated a drifting in that direc- 
tion. Each day I could note a deeper shade of 
discoloration of my feet and ankles, and a deeper 
pitting of the cedematous swelling, accompanied 
by increased bowel derangement, until, finally, the 
ominous pit had to be dug beside my bed and I 
could no longer extend my walk beyond our im- 
mediate fireplace. 

Felix, who was one of the best-preserved speci- 
mens of the " old prisoners " that I had seen, was 
very attentive and had exhausted his culinary 
238 



GOING INTO BUSINESS 239 

skill in trying to cook our rations so they would 
agree with me, but to no purpose. 

" Well," he said one evening, as we sat in the 
tent, " if I only had some money to buy some 
raw beans, I would try selling bean soup over on 
the Row. I think I could make enough to get us 
something else to eat." 

" How much capital would it require, Felix? " 
I asked. 

" About five dollars," said he ; " but it would 
be all the same if it took five hundred. I could 
get one about as well as the other." 

" Perhaps not," I said, taking a ten-dollar bill 
out of my pocket and showing it to him. It was 
one Rohrer had given me some days before, and 
Felix was not aware of it. I guess that if I had 
drawn a full-grown elephant out of my pocket he 
would not have looked more astonished. 

" Well ! — what ? — when ? — by gracious ! — 
where the deuce did it come from ? I didn't know 
you had any money," he gasped at last. 

" Oh, that's only another miracle of the stock- 
ade," I said, "and is certainly ominous of good; 
go immediately and buy what you want, and pre- 
pare for business." 

It was very satisfactory to me to see the happy 
expression that passed over his face as he looked 
at the bill. He looked his very name — " Felix " 
— " Happy." I watched him as he hurried over 



240 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the swamp to Commercial Row, and noted success 
in his very motion as he soon came hurrying back 
to announce that he had secured an ehgible posi- 
tion, a corner lot on the main path, — "a spanking 
good place," to use his own words. The tenter had 
given him the privilege of using his tent front in 
consideration of a dish of soup a day. Then off 
he went to secure his beans before it came dark; 
after which we busied ourselves in splitting wood 
from the old stumps in order to give him an 
early start. Morning found him, with his kettle 
or pan of beans nicely cooked, duly installed as a 
business man, crying, " Here's your hot bean 
soup ! " with as much vehemence as the best of 
them, and he was measurably successful. When 
he came in that evening he reported fifty cents 
ahead, saying, with feeling, " Bully, we're all 
right." 

A few evenings afterward Felix sat in the tent, 
his chin resting on his knees and his hands locked 
underneath so that he could rock back and forth, 
— his wonted position when in deep study. 
Watching him a few moments I said, — 

'* Well, what is it, Felix? I see you have some- 
thing on your mind." 

" How do you know? " rejoined he. " But I'll 
tell you. I was thinking, if you had no objection, 
I'd take that other five dollars and get some meal 



LIGHT CORN BREAD 841 

and salt and soda, and make some light corn bread 
to sell with my beans." 

" Where's your oven," I asked. 

" Oh, I'm hunky on the oven," he replied, 
" I've got a friend over in the northwest corner 
who has an oven, and he says I may bake with 
him if I'll furnish the wood." 

" All right," I said, " go in," — and away he 
went to complete his preparations. 

"Light corn bread" was a very palatable bread 
compared with our ration bread and was made by 
soaking the soft part of our ration over night. By 
morning this would be quite sour, and it was then 
made into a thin batter, soda being added to 
sweeten and lighten and new meal to thicken it. 
By the time it was baked the mass would rise and 
be quite spongy. 

So Felix enlarged his business and prospered. 
His bread sold well. I never asked him if he was 
making more than our extra ration, though he 
spoke several times about his banker somewhere 
on the north side. 

While lying in my tent one afternoon I noticed 
an artist, with his camera, taking some views of 
the stockade from the guard stands. I wondered 
who in the great Confederacy would want to keep 
even a shadow of that reproach to hand down 
to posterity, and then I thought how the Al- 



242 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

mighty, in his mysterious Providence, had caused 
to be preserved some of the records of the nations 
of the past, to be revealed after hundreds of years, 
when all knowledge of them had passed away. 
The day will come, possibly, when that artist's 
work will be reproduced in attestation of the truth 
that such a place as Andersonville ever existed. 

Some days after this, as I was lying in the tent 
trying to get some rest, but fast running into the 
last stages of my disease, I was surprised by the 
sudden appearance of Felix in front of the tent, 
nearl};- out of breath from running, 

" Hurry up, hurry up," he said, " they are 
waiting for you out at the gate. I heard them 
calling your name, and thought perhaps there was 
a letter for you, and went over to see; but they 
have an order to take you out ; they want you to 
put up medicine for our sick in the hospital. I 
told them I'd bring you. You must go. It will 
save your life. Hurry, I'll get a man to help you 
while I go over to the other side and get your part 
of the money, and when you get outside you can 
buy vegetables to eat which will cure you." 

All the getting ready I had to do was to get up 
and put on my blouse, which I was using as a 
pillow. Then, leaning on the shoulder of the 
comrade who came to assist me, I made my way 
to the gate as soon as I could. Felix was there, 
keeping the officer engaged, so that he would not 



CALLED BACK TO LIFE 243 

give me up. He slipped into my hand fifteen 
dollars. 

"What!" I said, "have you kept anything 
yourself? " 

" Oh, yes ; I've got the stock on hand and five 
dollars. I'm all right." 

With many wishes for my recovery he bade me 
good-by as I passed out through the gate, and I 
never saw him again. 

As the south gate closed behind us I felt as 
though I had been called back to life and to the 
world. Thus again had I been taken, providen- 
tially, I must believe, from the very jaws of death. 
I was taken up to the log house where we were 
first halted on our introduction to Andersonville, 
but now it was entirely surrounded by earthworks 
which changed the appearance very much, the en- 
trance being on the west angle. Here I had to 
sign a parole that I would not try to make my 
escape. We were given liberty to go to any place 
within a mile radius from this house, during day- 
light, when not on duty at the dispensary. At 
night we were required to be in our quarters. As 
I was waiting for them to get the papers ready to 
take a description, one of them said, — 

" You were in charge of a ward in hospital at 
Danville, were you not?" 

" Yes, sir." 

" Were you paroled? " 



444 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

" No, sir." 

" Tried to make your escape, didn't you ? " 

" Yes, sir, I did." 

" All right, but we will put you on your honor 
and give you a trial." 

After signing the necessary papers we were 
told to repair to the dispensary for duty. 

My old friend Schroeder, who had preceded me 
by several weeks, was anxiously awaiting my dis- 
missal from the office. He had been instrumental 
in getting me out to assist in the work. When I 
came up to the dispensary he seized me with both 
hands, " By Gott ! I any vay am gladt you have 
comed. I vas fearful dey vould not findt you mit 
all dat crowdt in dat damp old pen." 

I told him it was by the merest accident that 
Felix had heard my name called, and had assisted 
me in getting out. 

, " Veil, dat vas close ; he is any how a first-rate 
fellow, dat Felix. It vas lucky, py jingo. Dot 
is so, you look badt, you vould soon de bucket 
have kickedt over if you had staydt any longer. 
But come on; come in and rest; you look playdt 
out. Py jingo, I am proudt of dis." 

And I knew he was, generous, kind soul that 
he was. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE HOSPITAL AND DISPENSARY 

THE dispensary was a sixteen-foot square log 
house without any window, a style peculiar 
to that section of the country, and had formerly 
been the negro quarters to the double log house. 
It stood on the north side of the earthwork, two 
piecesof artillery being planted juston the eastside, 
bearing on the pen. There were two other drug- 
gists besides myself and Schroeder, a Norwegian 
named Oyen, and a New Yorker named Reed. 
It was some time before I gained sufficiently in 
strength to be of any service to them, though I soon 
noticed a change for the better and began to mend 
slowly. We got much better fare and had better 
facilities for cooking; besides, I could get medi- 
cine to assist nature in her effort to throw off 
disease. 

The stock of drugs was meagre, consisting, in 
the main, of " roots and yarbs " packed by the 
Confederate Medical Dispensary at Macon, 
Georgia. The United States had so effectually 
blockaded the Southern ports that it was a diffi- 
cult matter for them to get drugs that required 
245 



246 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

chemical manipulation, all they had having either 
run the blockade or been captured from the 
" Yanks." Consequently we had only a limited 
quantity of quinine, opium, mercurial prepara- 
tions, etc., though what we had were generally 
good and bore the stamp of English manufacture. 
But the way we sent out those " 5^arbs " was a 
caution, — sumac berries, white-oak bark, prickly 
ash, prickly alder, willow bark, dogwood bark, 
sassafras bark, sweet-gum bark, black cohash, 
blackberry roots, boneset, burdock, yellow dock, 
bayberries, snakeroot, golden seal, juniper berries, 
etc., being the ones in most general use. From 
these the attendants in the hospital made decoc- 
tions which they issued to the sick " in quantitie.=5 
to suit." We had no vessels in which to prepare 
them at the dispensary, nor bottles to put them in, 
and I am at a loss to know how they prepared 
them inside the hospital to make them effective. 

The hospital itself was a mere makeshift, — a 
simple enclosure containing five or six acres, en- 
closed with a tight board fence, and located per- 
haps a quarter of a mile from the south end of the 
stockade and extending a very little east of its east 
line. It was situated contiguous to a nice stream 
of water, called " sweet water," so that a canal 
was dug to lead a portion of it through the en- 
closure from west to east on the south side and 
discharge again into the same stream. This 



THE HOSPITAL 247 

branch and the one passing through the stockade 
united a short distance below the hospital and 
flowed on to Flint River, a few miles below. 

I found the hospital accommodations here in 
the worst possible condition for the treatment of 
the sick. Our preconceived ideas of a hospital 
were such that we had accepted suitable buildings 
for shelters as a foregone conclusion, and we were 
not prepared, even by our stockade experience, 
to expect to see such miserable substitutes as we 
found actually existing. By far the larger per- 
centage of the sick were lying on the ground, with 
only a little straw under them, and temporary 
shelters overhead sufficient only to keep out the 
little sunshine that might have benefited them. 
One side was open as an entrance, the rear side in 
most of them being too low to stand up under. 
Some were large enough to hold a dozen patients, 
and from that down to a capacity of two. The 
smaller tents were low and usually occupied by 
convalescents; for, strange as it may appear and 
sound, they did have some convalescents in there, 
though I think it was not the intention of the Con- 
federate government. 

The dense pine growth overhead cast a deep 
shade which kept the quarters in a mouldy, un- 
healthy condition, and fungi inside and outside 
the shelters indicated a condition of things well 
calculated to make a well man sick and a sick man 



248 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

die. I could only view the whole place as one 
vast shade of death, and was not surprised that 
of the many who went in there so few came out 
alive. Indeed, when we consider the extreme 
point to which they had to be reduced before ad- 
mission to hospital was granted, the unhealthy 
condition of the quarters, and the coarse character 
of the food, the wonder is that any came out alive. 

For the convenience of the surgeons they 
divided the enclosure into wards of a certain 
number of sick, each surgeon taking care of a 
separate lot of men, and each ward having its 
nurses, cooks, bottles, etc. I had to get a pass 
from Wirz in order to get into the hospital en- 
closure, so that I made a very close study of the 
condition of things and am thus careful in noting 
it, as what I write may in course of years become 
history. 

Occupying a wall-tent near our dispensary was 
a lady with a young child. I at first supposed that 
she was the wife of one of the ofiicers in charge, 
but soon learned that she was a prisoner, having 
been captured in company with her husband, who 
was a steamboat captain and a civilian, though at 
the time of his capture he was engaged in trans- 
porting government troops or supplies somewhere 
on the coast of North Carolina. His name was 
Herbert Hunt, and their first child, who was 
named Frank, was born in that tent, — an experi- 



BORN AT ANDERSONVILLE 249 

ence that perhaps has not a parallel in all history. 
Born into an experience like that of Anderson- 
ville, not twenty steps from a Confederate battery, 
surrounded by earthworks, he ought to be proud 
of the beginning of his career, for I think he 
stands alone. 

The mother bore her trials with considerable 
fortitude, though only a prisoner nominally, as 
she was permitted to go where she pleased and 
spent a great deal of time at Mr. Smith's, about 
a mile south of the prison. Mr. Hunt was acting 
as ward-master in the hospital, and was " hail 
fellow well met " with everyone. One of the Con- 
federate attaches, a Mr. Robertson, had his wife 
with him, and the two ladies seemed to enjoy 
themselves together very much. We found them 
to be a cheerful part of our hospital association, 
and very estimable ladies, and we had the pleasure., 
when we became acquainted, of spending some 
very pleasant evenings at their quarters, after they 
had taken possession of two vacant shanties de- 
serted by some of the batterymen. Such are some 
of the bright spots of our prison experience to 
which we turn with pleasant memories. 

A day or so after I came out of the stockade we 
had one of the hardest rains I think I ever saw. 
In the midst of it we were surprised to see an un- 
usual activity among the guards, who were 
hastening in the direction of the stockade. The 



250 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

battery near us fired a blank or two, punching a 
piece of clinking from between the logs toward 
the pen. We were surprised to see the little brook 
swollen into a mighty rushing torrent, which piled 
drift against the stockade so that it finally gave 
way, making a break of nearly fifty feet. The 
boys inside were having a jubilee. We could see 
them astride of logs, paddling around in the flood, 
gathering driftwood for fuel. A similar break 
was made on the lower side. It was quite exciting 
for a little time. 



CHAPTER XXX 

THE MEDICAL STAFF 

WE found the medical department pretty well 
represented by nine surgeons. Dr. R. R. 
Stevenson, who was in charge at that time, I was 
told, was practising in Indiana at the breaking- 
out of the war, but, being in sympathy with the 
South, drifted into the Confederate army as sur- 
geon and was detailed to Andersonville. One of 
our boys, who claimed to have known him in the 
North, vowed he had a family there ; but he trans- 
ferred his affections to a young Confederate lady 
and married her. As he was acting in the 
capacity of General Medical Director I know 
nothing of his medical ability. He accomplished 
little or nothing for the boys, though he had con- 
siderable to say of what he was going to do. 

Dr. Karr, who seemed to be a kind of roust- 
about whose duty was to superintend the hospital 
attendants and enforce orders (I do not think he 
held any commission), was addicted to inhaling 
ether and chloroform and getting into a kind of 
drunken state, when he was full of " Old Nick." 
Taking him all in all, he was, as Schroeder ex- 

251 



352 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

pressed it, " any how a funny fellow." He took 
special delight in watching close to the hospital 
gate after night, trying to catch the guards and 
men trading. He was acting as hospital steward. 

Dr. Thornburg was a man of fine feeling and 
medical ability, with a high sense of justice, that 
saw in the sick prisoner before him a human be- 
ing who required medical attention and medical 
sympathy. His heart was with his patients, and 
he took pleasure in doing all he could to render 
them comfortable, carefully diagnosing his cases 
and noting every change in order to meet the 
necessities of the case promptly. I frequently 
heard him lament the absence of requisites to 
render the men comfortable. More than that, he 
read me a paper he had prepared for transmission 
to the Surgeon-General at Richmond, in which 
he fairly portrayed the condition of the men and 
asked that means might be put at the disposal 
of the medical staff to ameliorate the condition 
of the prisoners, or that some arrangement might 
be made to have them sent North. He also re- 
ported the fearful mortality. 

Dr. Mudd was a bitter, red-hot rebel from Ken- 
tucky, who suffered his prejudices to bias his 
judgment. In his eyes a Yankee was no better 
than a dog. He was a surgeon of no mean ability, 
of phlegmatic temperament and well-defined mus- 
cle. If there was a soft phase to his nature he 



DR. JOHNSON 253 

left it at his quarters, and to the prisoners he was 
always distant and haughty. He took some pride 
in his profession and boasted of his relationship 
to President Lincoln's wife, who he thought was 
" no great shakes " after all. 

Dr. Thompson was a South Carolinian, who, to 
use his own language, " fought the false idea of 
secession like a devil, stumping his State in favor 
of the Union, but drifted with the tide." He was 
a voluble talker, always ready to laugh at a good 
yarn, and to go one better, but never suffering 
himself to be outspun. He was attentive to his 
patients and kind withal, but too reckless to be 
trustworthy, — a true type of Southern abandon. 
He declared that rum, women, and tobacco had 
been his ruin, and that his love for them was his 
only fault. He did not have much confidence in 
the stability of the Confederacy, and often said 
that he was " only waiting until he could get back 
home," — meaning under the old flag and govern- 
ment. 

Dr. Johnson was an individual from upper 
Georgia, whose medical ability, if he had any, 
was known only to himself. His latent hatred of 
the Yankees was extremely bitter, and when his 
better judgment was warped by intoxication his 
maudlin abuse was irritating in the extreme and 
knew no bounds. On one occasion, when in this 
condition, he came into the dispensary and at- 



254 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

tempted to help himself to more whiskey from out 
supply. On being refused he broke out into ar 
abusive tirade against us for daring to offer anj 
objection. He became so loud in his talk as to at- 
tract the attention of Mr. Dance and Mr. Rob- 
ertson, Confederate attaches, who came in anc 
dragged him out on his back, heels foremost, intc 
the rain. He was always fastidiously dressed, sill> 
plug hat and all, but that dragging out gave him 2 
very unpresentable appearance. Schroeder re 
marked, with an approving nod to the boys, " II 
is any vay schoost right; he vas so very madt as 
de debil, und lookedt as if he vouldt knock d( 
headts off from us all. Py Gott ! it vas too goot 
he bumpdt over the step, schoost likt a sledt, anc 
dot plug hat come down mit a plump-plump ! ' 
The doctor left Andersonville a few days later foi 
a visit home, and he never returned. After my re- 
turn from prison I became acquainted with Dr 
Boyd, the surgeon of an Ohio regiment. H( 
asked me if I ever knew a Dr. Johnson at Ander- 
sonville. He said that he had come across a mar 
of that name after the fall of Atlanta, — neai 
Jonesboro, I think, — who said he was at one time 
in attendance at Andersonville. He told Boyc 
how inhumanly the men had been treated ; how h( 
had lain awake and wept nights thinking of theij 
condition and trying to devise ways to rendei 
them even passably comfortable ; and how he hac 



DR. SHEPHERD 255 

spent a fortune of his own in trying to do some- 
thing for them. He made himself out to be an 
immaculate saint, and for his great benevolence 
our officers had put a guard around his property 
and furnished him a great many supplies from our 
commissary. I described our Dr. Johnson to him, 
and the picture fitted his Dr. Johnson so well that 
we concluded the two were identical. We of An- 
dersonville will always remember him in the ridic- 
ulous aspect of " Schroeder's sledt," 

Dr. McVeigh, a Virginian, was a tall, easy 
specimen of " don't-care " activity, whose atten- 
uated form required the support of a cane. He 
was easy in his manners and cordial in his inter- 
course with the boys. I knew several of his rela- 
tions in Ohio, Alfred McVeigh, of Lancaster, a 
lawyer of some prominence, being one of them. 
He was as well posted, perhaps, in family history 
as he was in medicine. 

Dr. Shepherd, Sr., was an old man in his 
dotage, who claimed to have been a surgeon in the 
United States Army or Navy, which I think 
likely, as it is a notorious fact that all the old 
wards of the government who found their way 
into the rebel army showed the meanest, most vin- 
dictive spirits we had to contend with. Like his 
Satanic Majesty when thrust out of Heaven for 
treason, they all seemed to want to get up a little 
realm of their own. The doctor was an imperious, 



256 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

arbitrary old fellow, who, for all I know, ma> 
have forgotten more . medical lore than an ordi 
nary faculty possesses, but the fact was patent tha 
he had not so retained it as to make it available 
at Andersonville. He was one of the bitteres 
men I ever met, yet without any clear reason fo 
being so, and he was the only surgeon in the " out 
fit " who dressed in out-and-out Confederate uni 
form. 

Wherever you met the old veteran, you woul( 
always find him shadowed by his son, Dr. Shep 
herd, Jr., a man perhaps fifty years of age. 1 
peculiarly marked trait of the younger docto 
was his veneration for his father, whom he callei 
" Pap-pay." Wheresoever you met them walking 
the son's position was always about a rod in th 
rear of the old man, which peculiarity might hav 
been accounted for by the fact that he was ver; 
deaf, and, lest he should lose the old fellow, a 
he could not keep his ear on him, it became neces 
sary for him to drop behind, so that he might th 
more readily keep an eye on him. The old gentle 
man's solicitude for his son was equally great 
My opinion of the younger fellow was that he wa 
daft ; but I might have been prejudiced : at an; 
rate, he was an inoffensive person affably inclined 
his deafness possibly rendering him a little dif 
fident. He was a hobbyist as a doctor, his con 



DR. ROY 257 

stant medical theme being the fine therapeutical 
effects he had seen in the use of " camphor water," 
from which we are led to believe that if he did the 
sick in his ward no particular good, he did them 
no particular harm. One day, when in a particu- 
larly good talking mood, he said to me, tapping 
a demijohn of camphor water with his cane, 
" There is one of the finest remedial agents in the 
world, * Aqua Camphorata.' " After that we all 
knew the couple as Dr. Camphor Water and 
" Pap-pay." They disappeared from Anderson- 
ville before I left. 

Dr. Roy was a dapper young man who carried 
with dignity and honor the medical lore of two 
continents without its seeming to hurt him in the 
least. He was a true gentleman, who bowed as 
low to the prisoner in his rags as he did to the 
officer in his tinsel. He lived about two miles 
north from Andersonville on a farm. Whether 
that was his home or not, I cannot say. His 
knowledge of medicine was theoretically good. I 
noticed that his opinion was sought after and re- 
spected by all the surgeons there. Practically he 
was a novice, having only taken his diploma some 
nine months before in Paris, and then run the 
blockade. He was justly proud of his profession 
and his professional attainments, and he sought 
every chance to investigate disease. Most of the 



258 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

diseases at Andersonville, however, though they 
assumed many forms, were the direct results of 
starvation and exposure. 

There had been other surgeons connected with 
the prison of whom I have heard the boys speak ; 
one, especially, whom they held in high repute 
because of his kindness and avowed Union senti- 
ments, but I never met any of them, as they were 
gone before I was detailed. Several of those 
whose names I have given kept " bachelor's hall " 
nearly a mile south of the hospital. A negro who 
did their cooking told us he had frequently over- 
heard them comparing notes to see which had 
helped the most Yankees off on any particular 
day, — meaning how many had died in their wards 
under their treatment. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE CEMETERY 

THE manner in which the surgeons performed 
their duty was to visit their wards every 
morning, visiting each patient and writing their 
prescriptions in a book which was then turned 
over to a ward-master. This officer made a com- 
putation of the number of doses, if of roots, barks, 
or herbs, and we in the dispensary issued them in 
bulk. It was rather a unique way, but we could 
do no better, as we had no paper in which we could 
divide the doses. Every other day we made pills 
of various kinds, geneVally about seven thousand 
in number. This work generally kept us busy 
until the middle of the afternoon. 

The mortality was very heavy during the 
months of August and September, 1864. The 
following tabulated record of twenty- four days in 
the month of September will give a clear idea of 
the inroads death was making in our ranks, and 
the sceptical reader may from this evidence incline 
to believe that my experience and record of life 
in Southern military prisons is not overdrawn. 
259 



26o 



A CAPTIVE OF WAR 



Sun. 


MON. 


TUES. 


WED. 


Thur.* 


Fki. 


S.\T. 




94 
99 

90 


93 
III 
95 


78 
99 


98 
102 
81 


105 

III 

83 
60 


104 
76 
100 

77 


113 
99 
130 

7) 


"=■ 322 
= 681 
==703 
-581 


Total.... 


2287 



These numbers were given to me each day by 
Dorence Atwater, the clerk who kept the death 
record, as he received them from Mr. Avery, who 
superintended the burying of the dead at the cem- 
etery, and there can be no mistake as to the num- 
bers and dates, as I have carefully preserved the 
figures. The greatest number of deaths in one 
day during the history of the place occurred on 
Saturday, September 17, when 130 were recorded. 
When a prisoner died, his name, if known, was 
written on a slip of paper and pinned to any arti- 
cle of clothing he might have on (which was very 
little, as the men generally took care of all that 
could be utilized), and the body was then carried 
to the dead-house. 

From the dead-house the corpses were piled on 
a wagon like cordwood as long as one could be 
made to stick on, and were then driven to their last 
resting-place at a brisk trot. It was a ghastly 

• The record begins on Thursday the ist of September, and ends 
on the 94th. 



REMOVING THE DEAD 261 

sight : here an arm and there a leg dangling over 
the side, and sometimes a head rolling from side 
to side over the footboard, — twenty-five or thirty 
bodies in a pile, the skin and bones of what had 
once been " human forms divine." Each corpse 
told its own tale of suffering and starvation too 
plainly to need an interpreter. 

" God is not mocked." Who, I wonder, in the 
Last Day, shall garner the fruits of this harvest 
of Death? Whose shall be the responsibility? 
God have mercy on their souls! 

The cemetery was nearly half a mile north of 
the stockade in an abandoned field surrounded by 
pine woods. It was beautifully located on high 
ground, inclining, for the greater part, to the 
northeast, and contained by my actual measure- 
ment fourteen and a quarter acres. I also drew 
a plot of it, a copy of which I gave to Mr. At- 
water, who laid it before the War Department at 
Washington, and who, after the war, was sent, in 
company with Miss Clara Barton, to superintend 
placing headstones at the graves and putting the 
ground in the shape it now is, as a government 
cemetery. The enclosure as finally arranged con- 
tains possibly twice the area that my measure- 
ment shows, as my figures cover only the actual 
space used up to the latter part of January, 1865. 

The burying was under the immediate super- 
vision of Alonzo Avery, of Rochester, Minnesota, 



262 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

who was a member of the Ninth Minnesota 
Volunteers and a prisoner. He had a squad of 
negro prisoners to assist in digging and filling up 
the trenches. Much credit is due to Mr. Avery 
for the masterly and careful manner in which he 
performed this sad rite for our martyred, heroic 
dead. His task was an onerous one. From 
morning till night, rain or shine, he was to be 
found at his post, using every care in his work that 
there might be no mistakes. 

The manner of burying was to dig long 
trenches, six feet wide and four feet deep, with a 
six-foot space between trenches. The bodies were 
placed side by side without any coffin, and gener- 
ally naked or nearly so. As each one was placed 
in position, the paper containing his name was in- 
scribed with the number of his grave and the date 
of death. At the same time a stake was numbered 
to correspond, and laid on the ground opposite or 
above the body, and when the trench was filled 
this stake was driven in at the head. These 
papers were handed in each evening to Mr. At- 
water, who copied them in the death register, 
name, number and date, so that if any one should 
ever wish to remove their friends they could do 
so. Many were removed after the war, but we 
believe it was a mistaken kindness to the memory 
of those noble martyrs to disturb their resting- 
place. They died for their country, seemingly 



ANDERSONVILLE BEEF 263 

forgotten by her ; left, in the hour of their extrem- 
ity, to breathe their Hfe away surrounded by hor- 
rors no pen can tell, themselves an embodiment 
of suffering even beyond the reach of thought. 
They were sacrificed upon the altar of their coun- 
try for a glorious principle. That principle lives, 
and some subsequent age will erect to these men 
the monumental shaft their sacrifice demands. 
Let them rest there " on the field of their fame." 
The cemetery was on the route to the enclosure 
where the cattle were slaughtered for the stock- 
ade, and the wagon that delivered the dead would 
run out to the slaughter-pen and bring a re- 
turn load of beef to the cook-house, a practice not 
calculated to engender pleasant thoughts when we 
were eating the beef. The cattle were confined 
in what had been a cornfield, but they had eaten 
even the stalks until there was nothing but stubs 
left. Here they were kept without any other 
feed than they could grub from the stalks until 
all were slaughtered. The beef was blue and 
gluey. I have seen it so much so at times that I 
could not eat it, after I got outside where I could 
forage for myself. The butchers used to declare 
that they always killed those that could not step 
over a certain number of rails in the fence, because 
it showed that they could not last much longer. 
Of course that was only a facetious drive at the 
starved condition of the beeves, but there was 



264 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

more truth than poetry in it after all. I had the 
curiosity to go out to the pasture once, and found 
the " critters " to be but a few removes from 
the condition mentioned by the butchers. 

There was a short time in August and Septem- 
ber, 1864, that Captain Wirz was off duty and 
Lieutenant Davis was in command in Wirz's 
stead; but the change was not perceptible in any 
amelioration of the prisoners' condition. Davis 
was in no way an improvement. A Mr. George 
Howenstein, who was a prisoner at this time, and 
who was removed from Andersonville to Millen 
when Sherman threatened the former place, gave 
me an instance of Davis's meanness in his own 
experience in some stockade in which he was con- 
fined after leaving Andersonville. He was one 
day standing looking out at a crack in the fence, 
when Davis, who was passing along the opposite 
side of the street, drew his revolver and shot at 
him, the ball striking close to his head. Not long 
after this Davis was taken in Ohio playing the 
role of spy, but he missed his deserts and went 
free. Our quarters were moved, soon after my 
being taken out, to a log shanty nearer the hos- 
pital enclosure. I suppose it was not deemed wise 
policy to keep us inside their fortification, es- 
pecially as their magazine was near our quarters. 
We liked the change, as we were not so much 
under the immediate eye of the guards. 



A FAILURE OF GOOD PLANS 265 

Soon afterward Dr. Stevenson developed a very- 
fine place for an extensive hospital. He laid off 
the grounds and had several wells dug. His plan 
was to erect a number of long, narrow buildings 
to extend north and south on each side of a wide 
street running east and west. At the west end 
of this street and immediately in front of it, was 
to be a large two-story building about twenty-five 
by eighty feet, to be used as dispensary, laundry, 
storeroom, office, etc., the upper story to be de- 
voted to the use of Confederate attaches. But 
the work progressed so slowly that up to the time 
of my departure the main building only had been 
completed, and we made a second move of the 
dispensary. It was a very fair specimen of Ste- 
venson's " go-aheadativeness " ; he planned well, 
but failed in the execution. As soon as I gained 
sufficient strength I began using the privileges of 
my parole, seeing pretty thoroughly all that was 
to be seen within its bounds, sometimes extending 
it considerably. I traveled around enough to 
convince me that they were very loose in their 
camp duties, inasmuch as I never saw a picket or 
guard on duty outside of the immediate require- 
ments of the stockade and hospital, even when 
Sherman was making his march to the sea. 
When a raid seemed imminent there were no pre- 
cautions taken to prevent a surprise, and a very 
small force of disciplined troops could have 
cleaned them out quickly. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

THE IRISHMEN OF ANDERSONVILL 

THE news of the Chicago Convention of Au- 
gust 29, 1864, that nominated George B. 
McClellan for President, and George H. Pendle- 
ton for Vice-President, spread through the South 
Hke wildfire and was hailed as the harbinger of 
peace and the independence of the Confederate 
States. In their platform they declared " the war 
on the part of the North a failure," and their ex- 
pression of opposition to its continuance in an 
aggressive warfare was a cause of general rejoic- 
ing through the South. 

Often was I asked by officers at Andersonville 
if I did not think that pozvcr in the North (mean- 
ing a very heavy element that was organized into 
a secret society known as the " Knights of the 
Golden Circle," whose avowed purpose was to 
throw every obstacle in the way of the successful 
accomplishment of war measures by the North, 
and which unfortunately gained the ascendency 
in the Convention at Chicago and controlled the 
manufacturing of its platform) would not rise in 
armed opposition to a further prosecution of the 

266 



THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION 267 

war and prohibit the calling out of any more 
men or furnishing any further supplies. That 
that unfortunate expression of sympathy with or 
for the South may have been made in good faith 
and with good intentions may be possible ; but that 
it was the means of prolonging the war several 
months admits of no possibility of doubt: it did 
do so beyond all controversy; for, being behind 
the scenes, I could see it. Like straws to drown- 
ing men it inspired them with new hope and zeal. 
How many times did I have the resolution of 
that Convention regarding the " abandonment of 
the prisoners to their fate " thrown in my teeth 
by their ever ready eagerness to seize on anything 
to vindicate them in their treatment of us. Re- 
cruiting-officers would make strong appeals to us 
to retaliate by uniting with them; preaching the 
great revulsion that had taken place in the North 
as the result of Lincoln's tyranny, as instanced 
by the Chicago Convention. Drawing a picture 
of our sufferings in consequence of our abandon- 
ment by our government with the most brazen au- 
dacity, they seemed to forget that though our gov- 
ernment had abandoned us, it was not responsi- 
ble for the direct inhuman treatment we were re- 
ceiving at their hands from day to day. To ask 
us to clasp hands across the dark chasm of death 
that yawned at our very feet was an insult of the 
basest kind, — an insult to our manhood as well 



268 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

as to our patriotism, — and was so looked upon 
and received by us and spurned with just indig- 
nation. 

It was announced that on a certain day an Irish 
colonel (O'Neal, I think), who commanded an 
Irish brigade in the Confederate army, would ad- 
dress his brother Irish in the hospital. True to 
the appointment he was on hand, and all the con- 
valescent Irish were brought out to hear him 
orate. I had taken a position astride a pine log 
close by, to watch the proceeding and hear the 
speech. 

The colonel and his staff presented a fine ap- 
pearance in nice new suits of Confederate gray, 
elaborate with tinsel. But the squad that came 
out to be harangued — ghouls and hobgoblins ! — 
what a magnificent lot to recruit an army from. 
There was not a man in the outfit that could stand 
erect without a support; some on crutches, some 
with walking sticks in each hand, some hopping 
on one leg, some crawling on hands and knees, — 
all dirty and ragged, some without hats, some 
shoeless. 

Mounting a stump the colonel extended a 
cordial greeting to his " Brethren from Erin's 
Isle." He was a wily dog and had evidently 
kissed the Blarney stone. He led them away to 
Hibernia's sunny hills and moonlit lakes, her 
castle-tipped crags and peaceful vales ; then, with 



TEMPTING THE IRISHMEN 269 

his audience, bade adieu to her rocky coast and 
found an asylum in America. He followed them 
through the march, the camp, and the battle's din 
to their present condition, asking them, as 
brethren, to contrast that condition with his 
and to see how much better they would be in 
the Confederate army. He asked them to con- 
sider how they had been betrayed by their 
adopted country, quoting from the resolutions of 
the " Great Irishmen's Party," as he called it, at 
Chicago, to show how, in its judgment, their ef- 
forts against the South had been pronounced a 
failure. He begged them to understand that the 
South had ever been the Irishmen's friend, and 
that she then stood ready with open arms to re- 
ceive them in fraternal relationship and to forgive 
the wrongs they had ignorantly committed against 
her in the name of Freedom. He offered them 
a place among their brethren in his brigade, which 
composed the " flower of the Confederate army " ; 
told how he would give them a large bounty, a suit 
of clothes, and a month's furlough ; and he closed 
his speech with an invitation for any who wished 
to avail himself of the opportunity to escape the 
privations of the prison to give him his name. 

After giving a hideous groan, one of them, who 
appeared to be spokesman by previous appoint- 
ment, said: 

" Colonel, we thank you for the disinterested in- 



270 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

terest you take in our welfare, but before we'll 
turn our backs to the flag of our adopted coun- 
try and enlist under the one you represent, we'll 
go back to the prison pen and starve to death if 
needs be ; won't we, boys ? " 

" Yes, by God, we will ! " was the response, and 
back they filed, leaving the colonel to his thoughts. 
He got one recruit from the prisoners, and he was 
an American, a keen, shrewd young man, who 
told me he made the venture as a " forlorn hope," 
believing he could reach his regiment quicker 
through the ranks of the Confederate army than 
through the walls and vigilance of a Confederate 
prison. Possibly he was right; the contingency 
was extreme in either case. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

A PRISON DANDY 

ABOUT this time I became conscious of pre- 
senting an appearance of abandon in dress. 
My wardrobe would not bear inspection ; in fact, it 
was a little the worse for wear, and I would have 
to spruce up a little before I dare venture to in- 
terview any of the families living within the cir- 
cuit of my parole. I had discovered that there 
were several. My hat, which was a light-colored 
fur and low crowned, had reached the last stages 
of disintegration. The top bore some resem- 
blance to the ill-fitting lid of a coffee-pot. My 
hair protruded all around, giving me something 
the appearance of a Comanche warrior. My 
blouse had long since ceased to be useful as a cov- 
ering to nakedness ; the holes in my shirt, unfor- 
tunately, corresponding with those in the blouse ; 
and my trousers, — well, the least said about them 
the better ; suffice it to say they did the best they 
could. But my good genius came to the rescue. 
An old fellow who was choring around for 
the " Johnnies," while in a sleepy inebriated state 
one day, dropped a coal of fire from his pipe 
271 



272 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

among some bedding, burning several white-duck 
ticks so as to spoil them for mattresses. I hap- 
pened to be standing near when Mr. Dance took 
charge of them, and asked him if he would not 
let me have one to make a shirt and pair of 
trousers. 

" Well," he said laughingly, taking a visual 
inventory of my outfit ; " I think they would do 
as much good in that way as any other," and 
then he told me to take what would be sufficient. 

We had a man helping us in the dispensary, 
named W. A. White, a tailor. He cut me out a 
shirt and pair of trousers and showed me how to 
put them together. With his assistance I soon 
had the ticks converted into an excellent outfit. 
I darned up the holes in my hat and drew the 
edges together, washed out the grease with a little 
aqua-ammonia, and then pressed it over the bot- 
tom of a crock until it dried. It made quite a 
respectable hat under the circumstances. Mr. 
Dance complimented me on my general improve- 
ment, saying he had no idea there were such pos- 
sibilities in an old burnt straw tick. 

Meantime Dr. Karr, in one of his predatory 
raids at the hospital, confiscated a part of a 
caddy of tobacco in the act of being transmitted 
through the lines. This he brought into our de- 
partment and told us to take charge of it. Now, 
anything, that came into our hands we felt at lib- 



GETTING AN OUTFIT 273 

erty to dispense for the needs of the sick; con- 
sequently, when we found a patient who we 
thought would be benefited by tobacco, we pre- 
scribed it for him, or allowed him to prescribe for 
himself, until it was all gone. I gave one of the 
boys at the cook-house a plug or two, which he 
appreciated so highly that he gave me an extra 
blouse he had. This completed my outfit and put 
me in quite a presentable shape — for a prisoner. 

Our dispensary was the only place where medi- 
cines could be procured within a number of miles 
of Andersonville, and citizens sometimes came, 
with orders from headquarters, to draw from us 
for family use. One afternoon three ladies, hav- 
ing such an order, came up on horseback. As 
they had not sufficient bottles of their own, and 
we had none to spare, in order to supply them, it 
was necessary, when they all wanted the same 
thing, to put it all into one bottle. They were 
laughing about it and wondering what they could 
do in order to get all they wanted. I suggested 
that they would have to let the one who lived 
most convenient to the other two take all the medi- 
cine to her house. Then she could get up a 
quilting-bee some afternoon and invite the other 
two, who in the mean time could hunt up spare 
bottles and have them in readiness to divide the 
medicine and make a social visit too. They 
thought that a happy solution of the problem. 



274 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

They were very pleasant and sociably inclined, 
and we joked back and forth while I was getting 
the things ready. To use a phrase of the coun- 
try, " we had a rale good time." Lady custom- 
ers were a little out of the common order, and we 
brought our rusty social etiquette into use in the 
best manner possible, doing the agreeable the best 
we remembered how. Over three years as a 
soldier — and fifteen months of that in rebel pris- 
ons — made us a little awkward, I expect; but I 
got them off in good shape, with a merry " Good 
evening " and a " Call again, ladies ! " 

My friend Schroeder, who all this time had been 
complacently smoking his pipe at the back end of 
the room, now springing to his feet, and bringing 
his fist down on the board counter with such em- 
phasis as to make everything rattle, exclaimed, 
" Py Gott, Hydte ! Dat vas schust first-rate done. 
I've been sitting here schust vatching you schoak- 
ing mit dose ladies like oldt friendts, und helping 
dem out from dare difficulties mit dare division. 
You maked dem tink you vas any vay schust right, 
und you bowat dem oudt schust so good as any 
pody, mit your vite shirt und pandts. It vas any 
how goot done. Dose ladties remembers you for 
dat, — hey! — vhat?" 

A few days after this I was called into the 
surgeon's office to assist in making out a requisi- 



AN INVITATION 275 

tion for more medicine, and was busily at work 
filling out a blank, when a small boy came boun- 
cing into the room." 

" Well, Bub," said Dr. Stevenson, " what will 
you have? " 

*' Nothin' ; I'm looking for Mr. there he is," 

— making for my desk without further explana- 
tion and coming down to business with, " Say, 
Mister, mother wants you to come out to our 
house to-morrow night." 

" Why, my boy," I said, " I guess you've made 
a mistake in the person, haven't you ? " 

" No I hain't, neither ; hain't you the man that 
stays over where the medicine is ? " 

" Yes." 

" I thought yer was," he said gleefully. 

By this time I could see quite a comical ex- 
pression on the doctor's face, and a merry twinkle 
in his eye, as well as a look of expectation on the 
faces of the others present. 

" Well," I said, laughing at the ludicrous out- 
look, " who is your mother, my boy? " 

"Why, Mrs. Stubbs!" 

" Stubbs," said I, more than ever puzzled. 
" Stubbs?— who's Mrs. Stubbs? " 

" Why," said he, looking as though he doubted 
my veracity, " don't you know her? " 

I could see the doctor shaking behind a paper 



276 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

he was holding before his face, and a broad smile 
diffusing itself over the countenances of the rest, 
as he said, in a kind of doubtful voice, — 

" I thought you knowed her? Why," he con- 
tinued, " don't you know them women you put 
up medicine for the other day, and told them to 
get up a quilting, so's they could divide the medi- 
cine?" 

" Oh yes," I said. 

" Well, that's mother — one of them women 
was ; and she's going to have the quilting and says 
you must be sure and come out to it, will you? " 

I sent the lady my compliments and told the 
boy to tell his mother I was a prisoner and not 
allowed such liberty, — it would be impossible for 
me to be present. 

The little fellow really looked disappointed as 
he closed the door. I heard him say, " He can't 
come." Then I learned that there was a young 
lady on horseback at the door ; she was to do the 
inviting, the boy having been sent in only to call 
me out. She rode off without my getting to see 
her. Finishing my work in a few moments, I 
went out and found Schroeder pacing back and 
forth in a kind of dog-trot, his hands clasped be- 
hind him. I knew something disturbed him. 

" Py Gott ! " he said, as soon as I appeared, 
** you schust madt a mistake dot time in not com- 



CHEATED 277 

ing oudt to see dot young lady. Py shingo, she 
vas any vay — vot you calls dem — goot looks ? " 

" Handsome? " I suggested. 

" Dot's it, py Gott, Hydt ; I almost did envy 
you, und vhen the boy saidt ' He can't come ' she 
shakdt her headt und lookdt so madt as dunder. 
What for you not come oudt ? " 

" What for," I said, laughing, " you not calldt 
me oudt? The boy did not tell me she was on 
hand." 

" Dot damndt poy, he any vay scheated you ; 
dat is all— vhat ! " 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

IN SOCIETY 

I MADE up my mind I would see that Stubbs 
family and apologize to the young lady for my 
seeming rudeness, and the opportunity came very 
soon. Mr. Hunt, having burst the soles of his 
boots, asked me to accompany him to a certain 
Widow Smith's, who lived in the area of our cir- 
cle, and who, he had been informed, had some 
sole leather to sell (home-tanned leather was a 
very common thing through the South). We 
traveled through the pine woods and chinkapin 
bushes along foot or bridle paths, as they called 
them. There being few well-defined roads, more 
by good luck than by any skill in woodscraft, we 
came onto the clearing with its double log house. 
As we passed up to the porch the old lady came 
to meet us with a hearty " How do you do? " ex- 
tending her hand with the salutation. I recog- 
nized one of my drug women, and after passing 
the courtesies of the hour and " taking cheers " 
I asked her if she got her medicines home all right. 
" Oh, laws yes ; after a spell and a heap of 
huntin' after bottles to put the stuff in. We was 
278 



VISITING 279 

powerful glad to get them too, it 'pears like ev- 
erything of that kind's gettin' so scarce in the 
country, its hard to get hold of any mo'. The 
wah's done taken it all, 'pears like. We just had 
to laugh all the way home that day when we got 
to thinkin' about it. We thought you-all would 
think we was funny women, to come there with 
baskets to get turpentine and camphor and sich 
things in; but you know times is not what they 
was no way befo' the wah." 

We found the old lady was true metal and had 
not taken kindly to the new order of things. 
Making the object of our visit known, she said she 
had sold all the leather she could spare, but that 
we could get all we wanted at Mrs. Stubbs's. 

" You know her," she said, turning to me ; " she 
was over to your place that day." 

" Yes ; how far does she live from here ? " 

" About two miles." 

" In which direction ? " 

" Well, you just follow that path beyant the 
fence around to the left like. You'll cross one or 
two paths comin' into it, but you keep right on 
in that one till you sight the bridge across the 
creek onto the big road. She lives a sight from 
the bridge up in the timber like." 

We did not expose our ignorance regarding the 
apparently matter-of-course distance, " a sight.'* 
After eating heartily from a bucketful of black 



28o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

haws which she placed before us, we bade the old 
lady good evening and hurried back to camp to 
be in time for roll-call. The last thing we heard 
as we crossed the fence was the old lady's invi- 
tation, for the fourth time repeated, to " call 
again." 

We were in a dilemma regarding the leather, 
as to reach Stubbs's would require several exten- 
sions of our mile radius ; and though we were not 
at all afraid of molestation by guards, we did not 
like to take the chances of a return to the stock- 
ade. I was not altogether a disinterested party 
on the leather question, as Hunt had promised me 
that if I could find the soles he would furnish 
me a part of the boot-tops to renovate my shoes 
and fit them for the winter. So next morning I 
went to Mr. Montgomery, chief clerk in Dr. 
Stevenson's office, an Alabamian and a very 
worthy gentleman, and called his attention to my 
shoes, the soles and tops of which were held to- 
gether by thongs and held onto my feet by straps 
tied around under the hollow of the foot and over 
the instep. 

" Now," I said, " Hunt has proposed that if I 
can get the sole leather he will share his boot-tops 
with me, and we will renew our understanding, 
which you can see for yourself is somewhat shat- 
tered and unstable, really needing a little patch- 
ing up." 



"NOTHING LIKE LEATHER! " 281 

" Well, yes," he said, pointing to my big toe, 
which had wiggled out between the thongs, " that 
looks as though it needed housing, truly." 

I told him I had found where I could get some 
leather to remedy the evil, but to reach it would 
necessitate my going beyond the limits of my pa- 
role, as it was nearly four miles out. 

" Now," I said, " similarly situated and like 
shod, what would you do in the case ? " 

" Well," he said, " I don't know really, if put 
to the practical test; but I think I'd go for the 
leather." 

" Then suppose I do so and am taken and put 
in the stockade for disobeying orders, — what 
then?" 

" Well, send me word," he said, " and I'll get 
you out again. If you can find the leather and be 
back by night, go for it ; I'll agree to be responsible 
for your actions." 

Turning around to Mr. Dance, who attended 
to calling rolls and was listening to our conver- 
sation, I said, " You hear that, do you? " 

" Yes," he replied; " all right; hope you'll suc- 
ceed." 

Hunt having sprained his ankle the evening be- 
fore, he could not walk very well, and I found 
that I would have to go alone or get some one 
else to accompany me. Oyen, the Norwegian, 
said he would go after we attended to surgeon's 



282 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

call; which done, we started in search of Mrs. 
Stubbs. Following the path around the north 
side of the stockade, we struck the trail that led 
us by Mrs. Smith's, following it, according to the 
old lady's instructions, " around to the left like," 
paying no attention to the several paths that 
crossed or led off at right angles. We were not 
long in sighting the bridge through an open space 
among the trees. 

We had rather a pleasant walk beneath " the 
whispering pines," which had already begun to 
drop their cones until our path was strewn with 
them. The soughing of the wind through the 
tops of the pines, the crisp snapping of the cones 
under our feet, the buoyancy of the pure Decem- 
ber air, and the utter absence of any sound or ob- 
ject indicative of prison life, seemed to create a 
new life in us. Now and then we would stop and 
feast from a bush of winter huckleberries, or pick 
the nuts from the chinkapin burrs that grew near 
our pathway. Oyen, too, seemed to catch inspira- 
tion and buoyancy of spirits from our surround- 
ings, and gave me an idea of his Norwegian home 
and life with a vividness peculiarly his own. He 
was a splendid fellow, finely developed physically 
and mentally, and had been educated at Christiana 
for the profession of druggist. His mind was 
well cultured and stored, and, so far as he could 



*' A SIGHT" 283 

command the English language, he was an en- 
tertaining talker. 

Thus occupied, we walked along until, as I said 
before, we sighted the bridge. We then took a 
survey of the country, so far as the nature of the 
roads would admit, to find a practical demonstra- 
tion or solution of the old lady's measure of dis- 
tance. " A sight from the bridge," " off to the left 
like," on the rising ground, we could see through 
the trees a neat, white, frame cottage, which we 
naturally concluded filled the bill, and toward this 
we made our way. We were met at the gate 
by one of the most formidable looking dogs I 
think I ever saw, who came bounding down to 
the gate to dispute our passage, dragging by his 
collar, and with apparent ease, a long chain of 
massive proportions. A lady came to the door 
and called him away. I recognized in her an- 
other of my drug women, but not the one of 
whom we were in quest. We had not properly 
estimated the distance of " a sight." Pointing 
us to a house visible through the trees, one we had 
not discovered before, she said, " That's the place 
you want to find." To reach it we crossed the 
" big road " the old lady had mentioned. The 
bridge was plainly visible from it, and so also 
was the house, and from this we inferred that the 
probable meaning of " a sight " was that the ob- 



284 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ject to be sighted was in plain view of a given 
point. 

We were not long in reaching the mansion, 
which we found to be an unpainted frame house 
with an " L " forming the almost ever-present 
open space through the middle, which on inquiry 
I found was used as the dining-room during the 
summer heat. We were met at the door by Mrs. 
Stubbs herself, the third, of course, of my visitors, 
who extended a cordial greeting and invited us 
in. 

" Ah," she said, turning to me, " you should 
have been here Wednesday night. We were very 
much disappointed that you could not come. We 
got up the quilting as you suggested, and we 
wanted you to enjoy it so much," — which I told 
her I certainly should have done under more fa- 
vorable circumstances, but that I was so unfor- 
tunately situated that my time was not always at 
my disposal, nor my wishes to be gratified, though 
I assured her that her invitation met my approval 
and merited my sincerest thanks, which I hoped 
she would then and there accept. 

" Possibly," I said, " you were not aware at 
the time that I was a prisoner." 

" Oh yes," she said, " we knew you were a 
prisoner, but had no idea there would be any ob- 
jections made to your attending our party. We 



TRUE TO THE OLD FLAG 285 

never even thought of it, and supposed it would 
be pleasant for you and that you would come." 

I then said that I owed an apology to her 
daughter, who came to give me the invitation, for 
not seeing her that morning, as I was not aware, 
until after she had gone, that she was there at all, 
the boy not having made it known to me. I 
found her very ready to lay aside all malice and 
to accept my explanation. We spent several 
hours very pleasantly with them. Oyen, I found, 
was very much abashed, so I managed to give 
Mrs. Stubbs a hint that he was a foreigner and 
his lack of knowledge of English embarrassed 
him somewhat. When she learned his national- 
ity she took quite an interest in him and drew 
him out in such a way as to put him entirely at 
his ease. 

We found that although Mr. Stubbs was a 
guard at Andersonville, his family were true to 
the old flag and very strong in their faith as to 
the ultimate triumph of the Northern army. 
This faith, I found, was based upon what she 
called her father's prophecy, which at my request 
she gave me. I will endeavor to give it as nearly 
as I can in the language she used, though there 
was a deep conviction of the supernatural evi- 
dent in her mind, and a solemnity and pathos 
in her voice as she narrated it, that I cannot pes- 



286 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

sibly transmit to paper, which will rob it of a 
great deal of its force and beauty. 

The summer and fall of i860 were remarkable 
for the brilliancy and long continuance of nightly 
displays of the aurora borealis, extending from 
the north and spreading over the whole heavens 
in crimson waves and brilliant flashes of electric 
light, grand and impressive in its constant vari- 
ance, and well calculated to awaken awe in the 
minds of those who sought for " signs and won- 
ders in the heavens." To these phenomena the 
lady referred, and her faith seized upon her old 
father's prophecy with a firmness that could not be 
shaken; and, as her faith seemed likely soon to 
end in fruition, I would not for the world ques- 
tion her right to view it in the light she did, es- 
pecially as it threw around the memory of her 
father a beautiful sacredness. 

" You remember," she said, " the summer be- 
fore the war, what strange red lights used to 
appear of nights, spreading all over the sky like 
clouds of blood and haloes of glory. Down here 
they seemed to come from the north and south 
both, and to meet in mid-heaven, rolling and 
waving back and forth, sometimes long tongues of 
light shooting out like swords, sometimes bright 
clouds bursting out like smoke, sometimes like 
flags floating and waving in the air. We watched 
them night after night, and talked about them so 



A PROPHECY 287 

much as to excite father, who was lying in that 
bed. He was very old and had lain there for 
months, not being able to get up at all unless 
assisted. One night we had all left the room to 
watch the clouds, which were unusually active. 
All of us were out in the yard, when who should 
we see standing in the door but father, intently 
gazing on them too. He astonished us as much 
as the clouds did. ' Ah/ he said, so solemn like, 
' it is a ■warning from God, we are going to have 
war, a long bloody zuar. There will he hard fight- 
ing. For a long time it will be in doubt, but fi- 
nally the North will overcome the South and all 
be right again, but it will end slavery and the 
South be like the North/ He then walked back to 
his bed and never got out of it again until he died, 
which was not long after. Yes," she said, " we 
knew there was going to be war, and it has come. 
We know, too, how it will end. The North will 
conquer." 

We wished from the bottom of our hearts that 
Mrs. Stubbs's hopes might soon be realized. 
Her daughter I found to be all that Schroeder 
had pictured her. Vivacity marked her conver- 
sation, and her eyes fairly flashed as she dwelt on 
the manner in which the South had precipitated 
the war, rushing with blind madness into seces- 
sion without waiting to see what Mr. Lincoln 
would do, just as if the North had not as mucti 



288 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ri^ht to elect him President if they could as they 
had to elect Mr. Breckenridge if they could. 

** There's South Carolina," she continued, " she 
always was a mean, stuck-up little State, more 
bother than she was worth. They are always too 
fast over there, it appears, as though they think 
they are just a little better than anybody else and 
all the rest of the country ought to bow to them 
and do just what they want them to. They have 
always been trying to kick up a fuss about some- 
thing and trying to kick out of the traces. I often 
think the best thing the North could do with her, 
after the war is over, would be to get all the 
Irish in the country, with their carts and wheel- 
barrows, and dump the whole State out into the 
Atlantic Ocean, and it would not take them long 
to do it either. It's only a little three-sided af- 
fair any way." 

I felt very much like giving her three rousing 
cheers. As it was, I thanked her, in behalf of the 
North, for her sound sense, good judgment, and 
sympathy. Her idea of the little Nullifier was 
very correct and her criticisms just, and her final 
disposition of the vexed triangle had the merit of 
originality at any rate. 

There was sitting by, during our conversation, 
a lady who had refugeed from before Sherman's 
army. She was not so inclined to lay blame upon 
the South for secession, but she did not have 



HOME MEMORIES 289 

much to say either way. She had vacated her 
place before the army reached her, and, not know- 
ing whether she had a home remaining or not, the 
doubt was worrying her. 

Having made the object of our visit known and 
secured the leather at eleven dollars a pound. Con- 
federate money, we prepared to return to camp, 
but Mrs. Stubbs would have us remain to tea, 
which we were not loth to do. Long months had 
passed since I had had the pleasure of eating a 
lady's cooking from porcelain dishes, and served 
by a lady's hand. What a flood tide of home 
memories it awakened ! We were delighted with 
our hostess and those surrounding the board, the 
pleasant prattle of little children, and all con- 
nected with the occasion. Certainly the freedom 
of the whole afternoon was calculated to make us 
feel as if we were under the influence of an en- 
chantment as great as, and certainly more real 
than, ever characterized the city of the great 
caliphs in the " Arabian Nights." Such circum- 
stances as this are the bright rays that occasionally 
penetrated the gloom of prison life, and we love to 
recall them, cast as they are upon the black back- 
ground of Andersonville stockade. 



CHAPTER XXXV 



CAPTAIN WIRZ 



WE returned to camp by the route on the 
other (or south) side of Sweet Water 
Creek, in order that our whole afternoon's asso- 
ciation might be one of new scenes and surprises. 
We reached camp just in time for roll-call, and in 
all our walk had not seen a rebel soldier to have 
hindered us from extending our walk to Sher- 
man's army; but we knew the Andersonville idea 
of justice, when a Yankee was concerned, suffi- 
ciently to do no act that would bring us under 
condemnation or even suspicion. 

We had rather an amusing instance of punish- 
ment under suspicion soon after I was taken out 
of the stockade. We had received an invoice of 
medicine, including a number of quart bottles of 
alcohol. These we had set on a shelf overhead, 
across one end of the shanty, and then had piled a 
number of boxes underneath for seats and bunks. 
On the day of the big rain I have mentioned 
before, the attendants from the hospital were 
storm-stayed and remained several hours. Next 
day, having occasion to use some of the alcohol, 

290 



THE STOCKS 291 

we found quite a number of bottles had been ab- 
stracted from the shelf, — whether by the boys the 
day before, or at what time, we could not tell; 
but as the boys occupied those boxes suspicion 
naturally rested on them, and on Mr. Reid, the 
druggist of whom I have spoken, and White the 
tailor. Reid had excited suspicion by being a lit- 
tle wandering in his talk, indicating " wit out and 
liquor in." 

Wirz made things blue for a while, and then 
had them all put in the stocks until he had time to 
investigate more fully and find out who the really 
guilty ones were. He kept them in the stocks one 
whole day in the hot sun. The theft was traced 
to Reid and several of the nurses, who were sent 
to the stockade — or " hell," as they termed it. 
The others proved their innocence and went 
clear, but they had undergone a pretty severe pun- 
ishment after all. White declared it was so hot 
in the stocks that he sweat until the sand was 
wet under him. 

Not long after this circumstance we moved the 
drugs to a shanty nearer the hospital and outside 
the fortifications. The new location being in the 
timber, and nearer the creek, swarms of mosqui- 
toes came out of the damp bottom to feast upon 
us. We used to burn sulphur to drive them out 
of the hut, which seemed a favorite rallying-place 
for them after dark, when the humming noise 



292 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

could be heard several rods away like bees 
swarming. The only way I could get any sleep 
was to take a bed sack and get into it feet fore- 
most and let the open end fall over my head. In 
this way I could get the better of them and sleep 
quite comfortably. 

The trees along the stream were festooned with 
long pendant moss, which gave them a weird ap- 
pearance and formed lurking-places for myriads 
of insects, lizards, and small snakes. The vege- 
tation was dense. Magnolias grew abundantly, 
and their deep green, shiny leaves, with a velvety 
brown under-surface, were handsome to see. 
There were also long creeping vines, reaching 
sometimes to the tops of the highest trees, with 
no perceptible variation in size and without a 
branch. Their wood resembled rattan ; in fact the 
natives called it rattan. Briar roots were also 
abundant, as were laurel, cane reeds, and a species 
of palm with wide-spreading leaves like our palm 
fans. The laurel and sweet-briar roots were a 
bonanza to the boys, as from them they made 
pipes, rings, and other wooden trinkets. The 
roots of the cane reeds made handsome pipe-stems. 
These trinkets were in demand as relics and 
brought them tobacco and sometimes food. 
Some of the pipes were marvels of workmanship 
considering the implements with which they were 
wrought. .Wild indigo grew in almndance. 



A YANKEE TRICK 293 

From this the natives manufactured their own 
indigo, by macerating the bruised leaves and 
plants and then evaporating the water. I have 
seen some very fine specimens of indigo made in 
this way. 

Early in December they got the main building 
of Stevenson's plan completed, and we made an- 
other move with the drug department ; one which 
gave us very good quarters, though we had to 
make a log heat outside to warm by. After Cap- 
tain Wirz returned from his leave of absence, he 
made his headquarters near the station, but came 
over to Stevenson's quarters every few days. He 
was generally very communicative among his sub- 
ordinates, and, being rather a loud talker with a 
peculiarly harsh voice, we could overhear his con- 
versation. He and several of the attaches were 
one day in the supply-room enjoying some apples 
and other delicacies they had there, which seemed 
to open up the old fellow's humor, and he related 
the discovery, by his " gals," of a Yankee trick. 
He had married a widow in the South, and his 
" gals " were her two daughters, — his step- 
daughters. It was a peculiarity of his nervous 
temperament to be always in motion, either walk- 
ing back and forth with jerky steps, crossing and 
recrossing his legs, swinging his arms, or in some 
way keeping up a muscular motion. On this par- 
ticular occasion he stopped suddenly in his walk- 



«94 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ing, brought his fist down with considerable force, 
and exclaimed : 

" Py Chesus Christ ! one of my gals last night 
discovered one Got-damt Yankee trick." 

"How so, Cap'n?" 

" Veil, don'd you see, she was reading over 
from de letters out from the box of de prisoners, 
don'd you see, und pretty quick she comes to one 
what don'd be written on at all. * Vhat the idea 
is? ' she said to me, ' dat dis one don'd be written 
on no more. Dot Yankee makes one gread mees- 
take mit dose.' But py und py, pretty quick, she 
goes to de candle mit it, to see off not de ink be 
poor, und py chance she looked it drough, and 
it vas shust so full mit writing as it could be. 
'Ho, yo! vhat fer ting is dot for writing?' she 
says. From dot I takes holdt mit him, und looks, 
und vhat you dinks. Py Chesus Christ, it vas 
all over written mit one Got-damt paby's milk." 

To the captain the discovery of the trick by the 
shrewdness of his stepdaughter was next to mar- 
vellous. To me, however, it was altogether mar- 
vellous as to how the poor fellow in the stockade 
procured breast-milk, — or " paby's milk " as he 
termed it. But Wirz did not seem to consider the 
absurdity of the thing in his admiration for the 
shrewd discovery. 

He had some very bad ulcers on his limbs, of a 
character that required mercurial treatment, and 



SCURVY 295 

he usually came to the dispensary after an oint- 
ment that we prepared from simple cerate and 
calomel rubbed together. As I was one day mix- 
ing him a portion he said, — 

" Make him strong mit the calomel." 

Being told it was already of more than officinal 
strength, he said, — 

" Py Gott ! I cares not for dat ; I takes de law 
into my own handts. Make him two-three times 
as strong." 

I then mixed it as stiff with mercury as I could, 
which seemed to please him, as he exclaimed : 

" Hi-yi, dat is goot ! Dat is right." 

The next time he came, he said : 

" Make him shust like dot last ; it vas shust 
right." 

As I have said, it was a mystery to me how 
those fellows secured so many luxuries to eat, un- 
less it was in the way I have intimated — from 
boxes sent to the boys from home. They always 
seemed to have plenty for ordinary demands. Our 
men in the hospital were suffering from lack of 
vegetable food to combat scurvy. It would have 
been far more potent in arresting disease than any 
medical treatment that could have been used. 
The more I studied the nature of the diseases that 
were producing such sad mortuary results, the 
more I was convinced they were the direct result 
of scurvy, under an assumed garb, in four-fifths 



296 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

of the cases ; but the fare issued was calculated to 
aggravate rather than to combat that disease, and 
was at no time really fit for a sick prisoner to eat. 

One will frequently hear it asserted (as I have 
many times), in regard to the matter of food, that 
the authorities gave the best they had and did all 
they could for the men; that if vegetables could 
have been procured they would have been issued. 
This I know to be an utter falsehood. On one oc- 
casion four or five wagonloads of just such vege- 
table food was brought in by the citizens as a do- 
nation to the sick. But the authorities would not 
permit it to be sent inside under the supervision of 
the donors, but took charge of it themselves, 
and kept charge of it until it was all consumed 
by them; and, further, the citizens were in- 
formed that if they brought any more it would be 
confiscated, as they had food enough to feed the 
prisoners on and would attend to issuing it them- 
selves. 

Then, too, we who were on parole did not suflfer 
for such things, if we could muster means to buy 
with from citizens. No ; these are facts, coupled 
with the history of the place, that ought to be 
known and fairly represented to the world, from 
the fact that it lifts tlie responsibility of the bru- 
tality practised from the South as a people, and 
places it upon the authorities, where it belongs. 
These evidences go to show that the citizens would 



"YOU GIT!" 297 

have given us far different treatment and deplored 
the condition of things at Andersonville, and they 
should have their meed of praise. True, there 
were those among the citizens who would have 
preferred seeing us all starve to death, but they 
were a very small minority. 

I remember an encounter with one of the latter 
class, which occurred in the case of myself and a 
Mr. Clark, who assisted for a short time at the 
dispensary. He and I arranged to go out one day 
and try to buy a chicken or two. We went around 
west of Wirz's quarters, west of the railroad, a 
direction in which we had never gone before (and 
I might add, nor since), striking a trail that led 
off through the brush. We finally brought up at. 
a log shanty right in the woods. Clark being in 
the lead, I stopped on the fence, near the door, 
while he went up to make inquiries. A knock 
brought a woman of Amazonian aspect to the 
front, who, in answer to his question for chickens, 
said: 

" No, we don't got no chickens hyer." 

Then, surveying him from head to foot, she 
asked : 

" Mister, ain't you-all Yanks? " 

" Yes." 

" Wall," she said, jerking an ugly-looking gun 
from the rack over the door, " you-all just git 
away from hyer in a hurry, will yer ? " 



298 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

We got. It was something like the story of 
Mark Twain's burglar: "You git?" "You 
bet!" 

" Phew," said Clark, as we struck into the 
brush, " ain't she peppery, though ! " 

We struck better luck near by and secured 
chickens, eggs, and butter and went back rejoic- 
ing. We were getting these for Christmas. It 
was amusing and yet sad sometimes to hear the 
boys in the stockade tell how they would like to sit 
down and eat a dish of some particular kind their 
good old mother used to prepare for them when 
boys; or to hear them relate their dreams of sit- 
ting down to a meal of good things at home, with 
Mother pouring the coffee and Father asking 
questions about the war. How often have I my- 
self been disappointed by waking up just as I was 
about to enjoy a feast of good things; and these 
dreams were so real apparently as to be really 
provoking and tantalizing. Their vanishing 
seemed like being torn from all the association of 
home, — every one rendered a thousand times 
dearer by contrast with our present surroundings. 

I have seen fathers fast ncaring the eternal 
home, upon whom the seal of death was fixed with 
actual certainty, in whose bosoms hope had died 
and death seemed welcome as a friendly release 
from torture. I have seen the silent tears cours- 
ing down their emaciated, dirt-grimed cheeks. 



** UNKNOWN " GRAVES 299 

as they gazed on the worn pictures of their little 
ones soon to be orphans. As I noted the fond, 
earnest, devouring, expectant look, as they held 
the picture in their trembling hands before them, 
their ears seeming to catch the sounds, " Papa ! " 
" Father ! " — I have been led to think that by 
some unseen psychological power the souls of both 
father and little ones were brought together in 
those extreme moments. While such a father 
fills a prisoner's grave at Andersonville, his place 
perhaps marked " Unknown," it is well that ob- 
scurity draws a veil over his suffering, and that 
his loved ones know not the cup he drank to the 
dregs, nor the tale that is told in the words: 
" Father died in Andersonville." 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

FLOGGING A '^NIGGAH WENCH '' 

THERE were several negroes of both sexes em- 
ployed around the hospital headquarters in 
various capacities, one of whom, an old negress 
whom they called " Aunt Sue," whose gray head 
and wrinkled features indicated an age not less 
than sixty years, had incurred the displeasure of 
one of the semi-officials, whose insulted dignity 
could be righted only by giving her a " strap- 
ping." As negro-whipping was an operation I 
had read of (with some doubts), but never wit- 
nessed, I managed to get a position to witness the 
ceremony without being seen myself. They took 
her into a cellar, under the south end of the build- 
ing, where she was made to squat down and draw 
up her clothing so as to denude her person from 
the waist down. They then made her clasp her 
hands under her knees, and in this position she 
was tied with a cord so that she could not move. 
They then turned her down, with her face and 
knees on the ground, thus throwing her under 
parts up. One of the men then took the whip, 

300 



" NORTHERN PREJUDICE" 301 

which consisted of a leather strap about eighteen 
inches or two feet long, cut tapering from an inch 
to two inches in width and fastened by the narrow 
end to a handle about an inch in diameter and 
near twelve inches long. Taking a position be- 
hind her, the flogger raised the whip directly over 
his head as high as the ceiling of the cellar would 
admit. With the handle grasped in both his 
hands, he brought down the lash with all the 
power he could give it, in a direction parallel with 
the spinal column of the culprit. Limited as his 
efforts were by the height of the cellar, each blow 
made the old woman groan and her flesh quiver. 
In this way she received thirteen lashes that I 
counted, — and I had seen enough; how many 
more they gave her, if any, I cannot say, but the 
old lady was off duty, confined to her quarters, for 
several days. The person who handled the lash 
was a young man dandily inclined, who said to 
me, in referring to the case, — 

" I would rather whip a niggah than eat any 
time." 

I told him I thought it a barbarous, uncalled- 
for mode of punishment. 

" Well," he said, squirting out a mouthful of 
tobacco-juice, " I suppose it does look hard to 
you-all, with your Northern education and preju- 
dice, but I tell you it's the only way we can get 
along with the cusses, and we are used to it; so 



302 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

we don't mind it down here, and if we don't strap 

them occasionally they become lazy and saucy and 
good for nothing. I've whipped lots of 'em; it's 
the only way to keep them under." 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

PRISONS NORTH AND SOUTH 

A CONFEDERATE officer who had but a 
short time before returned from Johnson's 
Island, where he had been a prisoner, made a visit 
to Andersonville and spent several days " doing " 
the place, — I suppose to satisfy a morbid curios- 
ity, as he seemed to have no more particular busi- 
ness than to look around. In conversation with 
him one day I inquired as to the treatment they 
received at Johnson's Island. 

" Well," he said, " we were treated very well 
there, aside from the knowledge that we were 
under guard and consequently confined against 
our will." 

" Did you get plenty to eat, and food of good 
quality?" 

" Oh yes ; we had plenty of the substantial and 
of the best quality, — in fact had nothing to com- 
plain of except the bread." 

" Bread ! " I exclaimed in astonishment, 
" didn't they give you good bread and plenty of 
it?" 

" Oh yes, enough, — too much ; but they did not 
303 



304 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

give us any but that damned flour bread, and I 
didn't like it ; if they had only fed us on corn bread 
we would have been all right." 

I told him I understood that they abused the 
prisoners there and practised a great many cruel- 
ties toward them. 

" That is a mistake," said he. " If we behaved 
ourselves I never heard of any one being mis- 
treated. Our quarters were good, and accom- 
modations ample for our comfort." 

I suppose he was not aware that I was a Yankee 
and thus gave me his views without reserve. 

I had a similar conversation with others who 
had been confined in Camp Chase and other 
places, and they told substantially the same story. 
They all looked in good condition, thus thor- 
oughly evidencing their good treatment. 

How different from our treatment in the South. 
To me it was a proud contrast, — heaven and hell 
in juxtaposition. Rats and mice were luxuries 
which our boys in the hospital were glad to get, 
and were sought after with eagerness. This is no 
fancy picture. Let me relate a circumstance in 
which I was particularly interested. 

A dog that had followed a citizen into camp 
missed his master and begged quarters with us, 
which we extended to him. He stayed with us 
several days, seemingly so well pleased and con- 
tented that I was surprised to miss him one day 



«' VERE IS MINE LEETLE DOG " 305 

very suddenly, but supposed that his master had 
returned and he had followed him away. Next 
morning, however, when Mr. Hunt returned from 
duty in his ward in hospital, he said to me : 

" Hyde, where is your ' purp ' ? " 

I told him I supposed Yankee fare was too 
much for his stomach and he had vamosed the 
ranch in search of something better. 

" Not much vamosed," he said; " those fellows 
who took the medicine down yesterday coaxed 
him into the hospital, and he wasn't there long 
before they jerked his coat quicker than you could 
say Jack Robinson, and had his meat roasting, 
frying, boiling, and every other way ; and not only 
that, but they dug up his entrails to-day, cleaned 
them up, and made soup out of them. Here," he 
said, " is what is left to tell the tale," — and he 
handed me a claw and a tooth. " There is your 
* purp ' ; what do you think of him? " 

Alas, poor dog, his love for the Yanks and their 
love for him proved his ruin. And now I will 
follow this with one more instance. 

A Dr. Brown, who was taken out of the stock- 
ade some days after I was, told me of an instance 
in his experience while inside the enclosure. Dur- 
ing the hard rain that caused a breach in the pali- 
sade he was standing near the break on the east 
side and saw something swim in from below. 
Seizing a piece of driftwood he plunged into the 



3o6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

flood and succeeded in killirag and securing it. 
He said its skin was like an eel's, but it had no fins 
and a suspiciously snakelike though blunt tail. 
Having nothing else to do he skinned it, and the 
flesh looked so tempting, and the pangs of hunger 
were so great, that he concluded to cook and eat 
it. So he dressed it nicely, cut it into thin slices, 
and fried it, eating heartily of it himself and giv- 
ing part to his chums, telling them it was an eel. 
They praised it highly and soon cleared the plat- 
ter. From his description I suppose it was a 
water-moccasin, a venomous snake abundant in 
the swamps and streams of the South. That, 
however, would not affect the flesh, and I doubt 
not it made them a royal feast a VAfricaine. 

This Dr. Brown, by the way, deserves more 
than simple passing notice. He was what might 
justly be styled a peculiar person, — in fact, to me 
he was an enigma. Perhaps sixty years of age, of 
swarthy complexion, rather below medium height, 
with a high forehead and rather heavy brows 
overarching keen black eyes, he had a peculiar 
shuffling gait, generally walking with his hands 
clasped behind his back, and his eyes bent on the 
ground, which gave him a decidedly stoop-shoul- 
dered appearance. He claimed to belong to a 
New York regiment, but I had my doubts as to 
his belonging to the army unless it was as a cor- 
respondent. 



DR. BROWN 307 

We were together some four months, but with 
all my study of the man, our walks and talks to- 
gether, I could not come to any satisfactory con- 
clusion as to who or what he was. By birth he 
was an Englishman, no doubt, as he claimed. 
He gave his name as Walter John G. Brown, as- 
serting also his claim to an hereditary title of 
which, by foul play, he had been deprived. Cer- 
tain it was that the authorities at Andersonville 
stood in awe of him and held him in such respect 
that he had about his own way with them. They 
did not resent any slur he might hurl at them, and 
sometimes he scored them deeply. 

" Blarst your bloody lies," I heard him say to 
some of them. " Do you remember the letter in 
the London ' Times ' of [such a date], regarding 
your blarsted Confederacy; you'll get a worse 
showing up than that if you don't look out." He 
threatened to report them to the Court of St. 
James, or to appeal, as an Englishman, to the 
Minister at Washington. He certainly impressed 
his jailers with the idea that he was some one 
more than ordinary, and I confess to about the 
same impression. 

He was a voluble talker, words dropping from 
his lips with the easy flow of waters from a foun- 
tain, and, though very cockneyed in expression, 
yet so full of melody that, once you heard, you 
were bound to listen to the end. He claimed to 



3o8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

have been apothecary to Queen Victoria and on 
intimate terms with Prince Albert, who, with the 
Queen, used frequently to come to his apartment 
for an iced lemonade. He wore a diamond ring, 
the avowed gift of Jenny Lind, and claimed that 
he had once loaned the young Napoleon a crown 
as they were enjoying a friendly bout at billiards. 
" Blarst 'is bloody heyes," was the termination 
of this story; " 'e never returned it." 

He was with the British fleet when they bom- 
barded Cape Town, Africa, as assistant to the 
surgeon-general accompanying the expedition, 
— Liston, I think. He had quite an extensive 
diary, closely written in phonetic characters, from 
which he would sometimes read me extracts 
couched in the most beautiful language, rich both 
in description and in logic. I loved to listen to 
his conversation. Dr. Thompson (himself, as I 
have said, an excellent talker), after sitting by 
and hearing him talk, said to him : 

" Dr. Brown, I'll give you a thousand dollars a 
year to come and live with me in South Carolina, 
just to have you talk to me." 

Even the keeper of the bloodhounds held him 
in reverence and promised to give him a " purp " 
as soon as it got old enough to wean. Having an 
invitation to tea with one of the attaches who had 
his family there, and from some cause not liking 



AN I. O. U. 309 

to go alone, he gave me a left-handed invitation to 
go along, which I accepted with pleasure, being 
always ready for something new and novel and 
not caring for consistency then. We had a very 
pleasant tea-party, plenty of fruit sauce and knick- 
knacks, which I had the irreverence to suppose 
were donations from some poor prisoner's box 
drawn upon for the occasion. As we were re- 
turning to our quarters he said, " Mr. 'yde, the 
gift of language is one of the greatest gifts of God 
to man; by it man can be led captive and locks 
turned aside." I confess I could not tell whether 
the man was a magnificent lunatic, or what; but 
he was certainly a success at whatever he was. 
Unfortunately he had a weakness for " tincture of 
'ops " and imbibed pretty freely at times, to 
" drive away blue devils," but even when intoxi- 
cated he was as immobile as the sphinx. 

He came to me one day in the latter part of 
November with the intelligence that in a day or 
two a squad of sick were to be sent north, and if 
he had some money he could get away with them. 
I gave him the money Felix had given me, telling 
him to try it on, and, if he succeeded in making it, 
to write to my folks and let them know I was yet 
alive. He was full of gratitude and gave me his 
I.O.U. for fifteen dollars, payable at Orelia, Can- 
ada, where he claimed his wife was. But, like 



3IO A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

young Napoleon's crown, " he's got it yet.'" 
Next day he left Andersonville and I never saw 
him again. 

To my surprise, after my return home, my 
brother asked me who that person was that wrote 
him regarding having left me in a very critical 
condition in Andersonville, advising my instant 
removal by special exchange, giving it as his opin- 
ion that I could not live three months, and that he 
would return to Charleston soon and have me re- 
leased. I read the letter which my brother had 
preserved, and found it dated at Fortress Monroe, 
just one week from the time I bade him adieu at 
Andersonville. An effort was made, through the 
Congressman of the District, to get me out by 
special exchange, but it failed, owing to multi- 
plicity of red tape. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

THE BOTTLE OF TURPENTINE 

SUCCESSFUL escapes from Andersonville 
were few, so perfect was the training of the 
bloodhounds already referred to. The effort was 
made by several of those who were on parole. A 
cousin of mine, who was working at the cook- 
house, came to the dispensary one day, wanting to 
get some turpentine. I asked him what need he 
had for it. He said he wanted it to rub his feet 
with. Then, calling me to one side, he said that 
several of the boys at the cook-house were going 
to make an effort to escape, and had been" told by a 
darkey that by rubbing their feet with turpentine 
and onion broth they could baffle the hounds. I 
tried to dissuade him from the attempt, urging 
the chances against it; but I found that he had 
fully counted the cost, and nothing but the experi- 
ment would satisfy him. (He had been one of 
Walker's Nicaragua soldiers.) I told him that I 
would place myself in a position that might bring 
me into trouble in case they were recaptured, 
which in some way I felt would be the case, and 
that if they were pursued he must dispose of the 
311 



312 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

bottle by all means. With this instruction and 
understanding I gave him a half-pint bottle. I 
told Oyen and Schroeder what I had done. 

Next morning early we heard the horn calling 
the dogs to the hunt, and learned that four of the 
cook-house boys had made their escape during the 
night. I listened with considerable anxiety to 
the baying of the hounds as they circled around in 
search of the trail, but they seemed to be confused, 
and after several hours gave up the hunt, baffled. 
We were encouraged to hope that the boys might 
succeed, especially as the day wore away without 
any tidings, and the next also. We began to 
breathe easier, but on the fifth day Dr. Karr, who 
had charge of the paroled men at the hospital, 
came rushing into the shanty with the turpentine 
bottle. He asked Dr. Brown if he had given any 
one a bottle of turpentine, or if he knew anything 
about it, and received very truthful negative an- 
swers. He then came on to Oyen about it ; but the 
latter swore that he had never seen the bottle to 
his knowledge, neither did he remember having 
filled one for any party outside of the hospital 
orders. Schroeder was next called to the stand, 
but he said that he never gave such a bottle of tur- 
pentine out — " sure and certain only to de hos- 
pital." 

I happened to come in just then, and a glance 
was sufficient to place me on my guard, as I knew 



BAFFLING THE BLOODHOUNDS 313 

the ordeal was coming. Turning to me, the doc- 
tor demanded: 

" Did you ever see that bottle," holding it in 
front of my face, " or know anything about it ? " 

" Why, yes," I said, taking it from his hand, 
and taking up another just like it, " it's one of our 
bottles, certainly, as you can see for yourself." 

"Yes, I know it is!" 

" Why," I asked, innocently, " is there any- 
thing remarkable about it, or connected with it, 
that you want its history or to identify it ? " 

" Yes, by God," foamed the doctor ; " there is 
just this about it. Those fellows who escaped 
from the cook-house have been brought in this 
morning, and this bottle of turpentine was found 
on them, and they say they got it at the dispens- 
ary, but would not tell how or of whom. Now 
I want to know who they got it from." 

" Well," I said, " I presume they got it from 
me, I gave one of the cook-house hands a bottle of 
cough-medicine in it several weeks since." 

" That's a fact," said Brown ; " I remember 
when you did it, and he needed it too." 

" Well," said Karr, " that is a satisfactory ac- 
counting for the bottle, but how in hell are you 
going to account for the turpentine in it, when 
there is no place this side of Americus, except 
here, that they could get it filled. Explain that, 
will you?" 



314 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

"Nothing astonishing about that," I said; 
" don't you remember the conversation you and I 
had about that barrel of turpentine when you 
blocked it up at the end of the shanty ? I told you 
then you had better put it in the storehouse ; that 
that was not a good place for it. They could go 
there and get a bottle of turpentine themselves as 
easily as we could get it for them, and they would 
be getting it at the dispensary too. Of course 
they wouldn't tell you how they got it." 

"That's so, that's so," he said; "I never 
thought of that. You were right about it. I was 
mighty 'fraid some of you-uns had been getting 
yourselves into trouble. I must have Dance get 
that barrel into the storehouse so they can't come 
any more such games over us." 

I tell you I breathed easier when I saw that his 
mind was satisfied on the turpentine question, for 
the old stockade rose up vividly before my mind. 
But if that barrel had been put under lock and key, 
as I suggested at first, I don't know just how the 
case might have ended. 

Schroeder, who during the conversation had 
been sitting on his bunk sweating with anxiety, 
came up to me, saying, " Py gollies, dat vas bully 
done! I must any vay shake handts mit you. 
Py tunder, Hydt, I didt tremple in my poots vhen 
I saw dat Dr. Karr mit dat bottle of turpentine. 
How in tunder did you so quick tink of all dat so 



''JUST LUCK" 315 

slick ; you youst vas so cool ; you trow him off the 
track so quick, und madt it youst so plain as any- 
ting. It vas any vay lucky for you aboudt dat 
medicine for a cough, py gollies ; it vas goot gen- 
eralship and it vas any how lucky for dot barrel 
to be outsidt. It vas youst luck all through — 
Vhat!!!" 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

A SOUTHERN FAMILY'S BEREAVEMENT 

AS the holidays approached, we of the dispen- 
sary thought we would have a feast on 
Christmas, so White and I started out to hunt 
up the necessary extras. Following the rail- 
road about a mile south, we found a Mr. 
Hickox, who promised to bring us two chick- 
ens, a peck of sweet potatoes, and a couple 
of pounds of butter, the day before Christ- 
mas. In order to get some extra bread we 
began a week before to increase our quantity of 
flour for pill mass, in this way secreting about two 
pounds daily, so that we had a sufficient quantity 
by the time we wanted it. A Mrs. Smith living 
nearly a mile south did our baking. Thus we had 
a big Christmas dinner and no thanks to the au- 
thorities for it. In fact, after we were taken out 
of the stockade we could find enough to add to 
our prison fare to make it passable enough, but we 
had to make it by trading with citizens and not 
letting the authorities find it out. 

Mrs. Smith would take her horse and buggy 
and go six or eight miles into the interior anil 
316 



HEART-BROKEN 317 

bring in things for us. She was a strong Union 
lady, though she had to keep both that fact and 
her work in our behalf a strict secret. I had won 
her favor by a chance though sad circumstance. 
They had four children, one of whom, a boy 
named Wyatt, six or eight years of age, was a 
remarkably bright child and a great favorite. I 
happened over at her house one afternoon and 
found Dr. Thornburgh and the mother bending 
over him as he lay unconscious, evidently suffer- 
ing from inflammation of the brain. The mother 
was bathing the burning brow with cold water, 
herself almost wild with agony. The poor fel- 
low's sufferings were so intensely felt by the re- 
maining portion of the family that they could not 
remain in the room. I asked the Doctor if deple- 
tion would not give some relief, and he said he had 
no lancet or he should have resorted to it before. 
I told him I had a thumb lancet at camp and 
would get it, but before I returned the child died. 
He had only been sick three days. 

They were a heart-broken family, and as there 
were none there to assist in this hour of their 
emergency I told the doctor if he would answer 
for me in camp I would remain and assist in pre- 
paring the corpse for burial. The poor woman 
begged very earnestly for me to stay. Oh, how 
tenderly and carefully she lifted her darling boy, 
as we washed and dressed him, no one else com- 



3i8 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ing into the room. After we had done this I 
asked in regard to a coffin. " Ah," she said, 
" Oglethorpe is the nearest point where we can 
get one." I inquired if they had any lumber that 
would do, and she suggested the boards in the 
garret floor overhead. I selected such as I 
thought would do, and told her to send the black 
boy over to camp with them, and I would try to 
find a carpenter among the paroled men. I was 
fortunate enough to find one who had done such 
work, and he made the coffin for them. This 
done, I had gone as far as I could; it would not 
have done for me to appear in the funeral train, 
as it would have taken me past Wirz's office, and 
might have resulted unpleasantly for them as well 
as for myself. 

It was several days before I saw the family 
again, but when I did call the bereaved mother 
burst into tears as she thanked me for my kind 
interest. 

" If it had not been for you," she said, " I do 
not know what we would have done." 

I always had a warm welcome when I called 
there after that, and when she learned that I was 
going to leave Andersonville she sent word to 
know what day I was going to start. On the 
morning that I left, her black man brought me 
the half of a boiled ham and nearly a peck of bis- 
cuit, begging me to accept them as a memento of 
her kind regards. 



CHAPTER XL 

JEFF DAVIS'S SPEECH AT MACON 

IN September Jeff Davis made a tour through the 
South, inspecting the Confederate army con- 
fronting Sherman, and trying to create enthusi- 
asm among the disheartened soldiers. It had al- 
ready been hinted that Sherman contemplated 
cutting loose from Atlanta and making a march 
to the sea. The Confederates hooted at the idea 
and tried to convey the impression that it was not 
a strategic move, but, on the contrary, a military 
necessity, as Hood had taken charge of that de- 
partment and had cut off Sherman's supplies so 
that he was likely to lose his whole army if he 
could not get up a communication by the sea- 
board and establish a base in that direction. That 
all sounded pretty enough, and no doubt the peo- 
ple down there took stock in it; but we got hold 
of the Macon " Telegraph " nearly every day and 
knew pretty well how things were moving. 

The army under Hood was fast becoming little 
more than an organized mob, great dissatisfac- 
tion existing among his soldiers, many of whom 
were taking furloughs without leave. It was this 

3x9 



320 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

state of things that necessitated Davis's visit of 
encouragement to the west, and on the 23d of 
September he tried to pour oil on the troubled 
waters in a great speech at Macon City, a report 
of which we got in the " Telegraph," 

Some of those who went from Andersonvillc 
to hear him reported the speech as being the 
greatest rhetorical effort they had ever heard 
(which might have been and no doubt was so). 
They came back ablaze with enthusiasm. They 
told how, if Sherman cut loose from Atlanta, dis- 
aster worse than that which overwhelmed Napo- 
leon at Moscow would meet him at every step, 
and how his army would be annihilated if he re- 
mained at Atlanta; in fact, they brought it down 
to so fine a point that annihilation awaited him, 
take which horn of the dilemma he might. How- 
ever, we did not " scare worth a cent." But 
when we read the speech in the " Telegraph " wc 
were astonished that any sane man, holding the 
position that Davis did, would make a speech 
showing up so clearly the true state and helpless 
condition of the western army, and the tottering 
condition of the whole structure of secession, at 
such a critical time. It sounded more like the 
unmethodical speech of a lunatic. I will give it 
as reported in the " Telegraph." 



THE SPEECH 321 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Fellow Citi- 
zens : It would have gladdened my heart to have met you 
in prosperity instead of adversity, but friends are drawn 
together in adversity. The son of a Georgian who fought 
through the first Revolution, I would be untrue to my- 
self if I should forget the State in her day of peril. 

" What though misfortune has befallen our arms from 
Decatur to Jonesboro, our cause is not lost. Sherman can- 
not keep up his long line of communication, and retreat 
sooner or later he must; and when that day comes the fate 
that befell the army of the French Empire in its retreat 
from Moscow will be reacted. Our cavalry and our people 
will harass and destroy his army as did the Cossacks that 
of Napoleon ; and the Yankee general, like him, will escape 
with only a bodyguard. 

" How can this be the most speedily effected ? By the 
absentees of Hood's army returning to their posts; and 
will they not? Can they see the banished exiles, can they 
hear the wail of their suffering countrywomen and children, 
and not come? By what influences they are made to stay 
away it is not necessary to speak. If there is one who will 
stay away at this hour, he is unworthy the name of Geor- 
gian. 

" To the women no appeal is necessary ; they are like 
the Spartan mothers of old. I know of one who has lost 
all her sons except one of eight years. She wrote that she 
wanted me to reserve a place for him in the ranks. The 
venerable General Polk, to whom I read the letter, knew 
that woman well, and said, ' It is characteristic of her.' 
But I will not weary you by turning aside to relate the 
various incidents of giving up the last son to the cause of 
our country known to me. Wherever we go we find the 
hearts and hands of our noble women enlisted. They are 
seen wherever the eye may fall or the step turn. They have 
one duty to perform, — to buoy up the hearts of our people. 

" I know the deep disgrace felt by Georgia at our army 
falling back from Dalton to the interior of the State, but I 
was not of those who considered Atlanta lost when our 



322 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

army crossed the Chattahoochee. I resolved that it should 
not be, and I then put a man in command who I knew 
would strike a manly blow for the city, and many a Yan- 
kee's blood was made to nourish the soil before the prize 
was won. It does not become us to revert to disaster. 
Let the dead bury the dead. Let us with one arm and one 
oflfort endeavor to crush Sherman. I am going to the army 
to confer with our generals. The end must be the defeat of 
our enemy. 

" It has been said that I abandoned Georgia to her fate. 
Shame on such a falsehood. Where could the author have 
been when Walker, when Polk, and when General Stephen 
D. Lee were sent to her assistance? Miserable man! The 
man who uttered this was a scoundrel. He was not a man 
to save our country. If I knew that a General did not pos- 
sess the right qualities to command, would I not be wrong 
if he was not removed? Why, when our army was falling 
back from northern Georgia, I even henrd that I had sent 
Bragg with pontoons to cross it to Cuba. But we must be 
charitable. The man who can speculate ought to be made 
to take up his musket. 

" When the war is over and our independence won, — and 
we will establish our independence, — who will be our aris- 
tocracy? I hope the limping soldier. To the young ladies 
I would say that in choosing between the empty sleeve and 
the man who had remained at home and grown rich, always 
choose the empty sleeve. Let the old men remain at home 
and make bread ; but, should they know of any young man 
keeping away from the service who cannot be made to go 
any other way, let them write to the Executive. I read 
all letters sent me from the people, but have not the time to 
reply to them. You have not many men between the ages 
of eighteen and forty-five left. The boys — God bless them 
— are, as rapidly as they become old enough, going to the 
field. 

" The city of Macon is filled with stores, sick, and 
wounded. It must not be a1)andoned when threatened; 
but when the enemy comes, instead of calling upon Hood's 



THE SPEECH 323 

army for defense, the old men must fight; and when the 
enemy is driven beyond Chattanooga they, too, can join in 
the general rejoicing. 

" Your prisoners are kept as a sort of Yankee capital. T 
have heard that one of their Generals said their exchange 
would defeat Sherman. I have tried every means, con- 
ceded everything, to effect an exchange, but to no purpose. 
Butler, the beast, with whom no commissioner of exchange 
would hold intercourse, had published in the newspapers 
that if we would consent to the exchange of negroes all 
difficulties might be removed. This is reported as an effort 
of his to get himself whitewashed by holding intercourse 
with gentlemen. If an exchange could be effected I don't 
know but I might be induced to recognize Butler. But in 
the future every effort will be given, as far as possible, to 
effect the end. We want our soldiers in the field, and we 
want the sick and wounded to return home. 

" It is not proper for me to speak of the number of men 
in the field, but this I will say, that two thirds of our men 
are absent; some sick, some wounded, but most of them 
absent without leave. The man who repents and goes back 
to his commander voluntarily appeals ctrongly to Executive 
clemency. But suppose he stays away until the war is 
over, and his comrades return home, and every man's his- 
tory will be told, where will he shield himself? It is upon 
these reflections that I rely to make men return to their 
duty; but, after conferring with our Generals at head- 
quarters, if there be any other remedy, it shall be applied. 
I love my friends and I forgive my enemies. 

" I have been asked to send reenforcements from Vir- 
ginia to Georgia. In Virginia the disparity in numbers is 
just as great as it is in Georgia. Then I have been asked 
why the army sent to the Shenandoah valley was not sent 
here. It was because an army of the enemy had penetrated 
that valley to the very gates of Lynchburg, and General 
Early was sent to drive them back. This he not only suc- 
cessfully did, but, crossing the Potomac, came well-nigh 
capturing Washington itself, and forced Grant to send two 



324 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

corps of his army to protect it. This the enemy denom- 
inated a raid. If so, Sherman's march into Georgia is a 
raid. What would prevent them now, if Early were with- 
drawn, from taking Lynchburg and putting a complete 
cordon of men around Richmond? I counselled with that 
great and grave soldier. General Lee, upon all these points. 
My mind roamed over the whole field. 

" With this we can succeed. If one half the men now ab- 
sent without leave will return to duty, we can defeat the 
enemy. With that hope I am going to the front. I may 
not realize this hope; but I know there are men there who 
have looked death in the face too often to despond now. 
Let no one despond, let no one distrust, and remember that 
if genius is the beau ideal, hope is the reality." 



CHAPTER XLI 

THE STOCKADE EMPTIED 

MEANWHILE the days rolled on, and Sher- 
man still lay at Atlanta. Word came of 
a masterly flank movement made by Hood that 
would necessitate Sherman's retreat; still he 
stayed. I asked them why, if things were so du- 
bious, the old fellow took it so easy; and I won- 
dered, too, why it was that they were moving the 
prisoners from the stockade at the rate of a thou- 
sand a day until they were all removed, only the 
sick in the hospital remaining. 

Then, too, one of the funny phases of the flank 
movement was that they lost sight of Hood's 
army; he seemed to have obliterated his tracks 
and severed his own communications, and for a 
number of days no tidings reached them of 
Hood's movements; yet still Sherman lay at At- 
lanta, seemingly indifferent as to Hood's army or 
flanking, and there he continued to lie until about 
the 1 6th of November. 

The people reported Atlanta in flames and 
Sherman marching in two columns on central 
Georgia. Every available man was sent to op- 
325 



326 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

pose his advance. It was thought that Ander- 
sonville was to be one of the points aimed at, but 
when they bore to the east from Macon we knew 
better. Milledgeville was entered on the 23d of 
November, just two months from the day that 
Davis made his speech at Macon. General How- 
ard was also reported at Gordon Junction. I 
asked them how that looked for a retreating army 
and a Moscow disaster. Oh, well ; they were just 
getting him where they wanted him; they would 
soon have him surrounded, and then look out. 1 
told them there was certainly the most system in 
that retreat of any I had ever read of; besides it 
was remarkable to witness such an army retreat- 
ing on the offensive. 

In a few days more we got the report that 
Sherman had entered Savannah, and had issued 
a proclamation from there, offering protection to 
any Confederate soldiers who would come in and 
lay down their arms, " which," I observed, " is the 
end of the most remarkable and masterly retreat 
the world ever saw." 

While the stockade was empty they ploughed 
and harrowed it over. What the idea was I could 
not learn, but I suppose it was to obliterate the 
evidences of the makeshifts the boys had to make 
to get shelter. They also erected a row of sheds 
on the north end, but they were all put there after 
the stockade had been emptied, so that those who 



A MORBID CURIOSITY 327 

saw the place at the close of the war saw it in 
much better shape for comfort than it was when 
full of men. About the ist of January, 1865, 
they returned from 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners, but 
they were treated better than the old occupants 
had been, though they were mostly of the old in- 
habitants. They issued wood to them occasion- 
ally, and they had the sheds mentioned to use for 
the sick. Otherwise they had to furnish their 
own shelters as formerly, and occupied the south 
side. 

About this time General Winder ordered a 
druggist, clerk, butcher, several nurses, and fifteen 
negroes sent to Columbia, S. C, to our officers' 
hospital. .We druggists drew cuts, and so did 
the clerks, Dorance Atwater and I being the lucky 
ones, a Mr. Smith drawing the butcher's lot. The 
2(1 of February was the day set for our departure. 
The day before we left Mr. Smith and I concluded 
we would ask Captain Wirz for a pass to visit the 
old stockade. We wanted to see some of the 
boys there, and had a morbid curiosity to see 
where we had lain and endured the tortures of 
hunger and disease. We went over to his quar- 
ters, near the railroad, but had to wait awhile, as 
he had not yet put in his appearance. The clerk 
told us we might prepare for a general cursing 
and refusal. On his arrival we approached him 
politely, telling him we were under marching or- 



328 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ders and would like to see some boys in the stock- 
ade if he would favor us with a pass. 

" So ! " he said, " you have to go to-morrow, — 
ha?" 

" Yes, sir." 

" Und got friendts in de stockade you vants to 
see, — ha ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" Veil, I guess I lets you go in to see de poys 
and bid dem goot py." He handed us a pass and 
went out without saying another word. 

" Well," said the clerk; " what's come over the 
old man? That's the first pass he ever wrote, to 
my knowledge, without making things blue first." 

Whether he remembered my ointment, and 
thereby felt kindly disposed, I cannot say, but we 
got our pass and were satisfied. 

As that was my last interview with and sight 
of Captain Wirz, I will digress. I have frequent- 
ly spoken of his profanity, and given some exam- 
ples of his use of it in conversation, but they will 
give you but a vague idea of its extent. He was, 
beyond controversy, the most intensely and abus- 
ively profane man I ever met. Expressions of 
this character were of frequent use with him : 
" Py Schesus Christ, shust so sure as I am going 
to hell ! " or " Shust so sure as I vill never get to 
heaven, I'll do so and so! " And his whole bear- 
ing was in keeping with his profanity. He ever 



A NEW ASPECT 329 

carried the impression, to my mind, of a man lost 
to every good impulse, over whose door the 
" raven of despair " constantly sat, who had a 
foreboding of his fate and had heard his eternal 
doom in this life. 

Armed with this pass we approached the south 
gate and were admitted within the enclosure. I 
confess to a shuddering sensation when I heard 
the gate creak behind me and found myself within, 
but there were only a few hundred men now on 
the south side. The north side was entirely 
empty. Commercial Row, with its motley crowd 
of a few weeks ago, had passed away and a bar- 
ren tract of sand alone remained. Its site, even, 
could not be traced. On the south side we found 
the boys occupying quarters similar to those that 
had formerly marked the spot. The men, as a 
whole, were looking better; tiie scurvy cases had 
mostly died or gone to other prisons. 

I found several of my old friends, — Coulson, 
the one to whom I gave the turpentine, among the 
rest. I told him how nearly it had come to get- 
ting me into trouble. He said they had been out 
several days without hearing anything of their 
pursuers ; they supposed they were out of all dan- 
ger, and under this impression they were sleeping 
during the day without a lookout, when a party 
came onto them with another pack of hounds, who 
were in search of runaway negroes. The dogs 



330 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

struck their trail and were on them before they 
had time to do anything. 

I also found Carlisle, of my Danville escape, 
who had stood the racket fairly. They all crowd- 
ed around us, anxious for news. We told them 
that everything indicated a near ending of the 
war, that the Confederacy was tottering on its last 
legs, and that everything pointed to their near re- 
lease. We thought it was only a question of a 
few more months at farthest, until the gates would 
be opened never more to close. We gave them 
the latest news from Sherman. Their dull eyes 
brightened, and a spirit of new life seemed to en- 
ter into them. 

I viewed the spot, as nearly as I could locate it 
in the changed condition of things, where Felix 
and I had shared our mutual woes. Oh, the feel- 
ing of intense horror that passed through me at 
this retrospect. I thought, with a shudder, of my 
helpless condition as I lay there that day when 
they called my name at the gate, and upon what a 
slender thread my life hung; it was all owing to 
the chance call reaching Felix's ear as he sat vend- 
ing soup on Commercial Row. Oh, I thought, 
every grain of sand in that stockade, had it a 
voice, could tell a tale of suffering that would 
freeze the very blood in the veins, — a story of 
suffering that would shame Satan himself, and 



GOOD-BYE! 331 

that would forever fix the names of the perpetra- 
tors on the black roll of infamy. 

As it is, Andersonville has passed into history, 
and to the masses her horrors are fast becoming 
a myth. Yet there are living to-day thousands 
upon the tablets of whose memories their suffer- 
ings there are graven as with pointed steel. On 
the other hand, there are those living to-day, hon- 
ored and emulated, upon whose souls hang the 
curses of the nearly fourteen thousand victims 
who fell under the weight of their cruelty at An- 
dersonville, with those of many more who died at 
other prisons. 

As the sun sank in the west we passed down to 
Providence Spring, quaffed again its sweet wa- 
ters, bade the boys adieu, and passed for the last 
time from the old stockade, shaking the dust from 
our feet as its hinges grated behind us. 



CHAPTER XLII 

GENERAL SHERMAN's FOOTPRINTS 

AS we were to start early in the morning we 
spent our last evening in hunting up our 
friends and bidding them good-by. There are 
those whose acquaintance we formed there, whose 
faces we love to recall, though we have lost track 
of all of them personally and have seen none of 
them since we bade them adieu. 

Early in the morning we gathered with the boys 
to eat our last meal together (the last even to this 
day), after which Schroeder and Hunt accompa- 
nied us to the depot. As I clambered into the 
box car Schroeder came up to bid me good-by; 
thrown together as we had been, under such ad- 
verse circumstances, ours had been no common 
friendship. He had been more intimately con- 
nected with me in my sufferings than any other 
of my prison companions, though fifteen years my 
senior. Our acquaintance began at Richmond 
and closed at Andersonville. His quivering chin 
spoke more than words as he grasped me by the 
hand, saying, " Goot py, Hydt, goot py ! '* Poor 

332 



CONFEDERATE DISASTERS 333 

fellow ! — he was one of the victims of the steam- 
boat " Sultan " that blew up on the Mississippi. 

We moved slowly away and intervening woods 
shut off every view of the prison. We were noth- 
ing loth to change, fully assured in our own 
minds that nothing worse could meet us in the fu- 
ture. For surely Andersonville must be the cul- 
mination of Southern diabolism, and every sign 
in the military prison was prognostic of the rapid- 
ly approaching dissolution of that child of hell, 
the Southern Confederacy. Hood's magnificent 
flank movement had ended in disaster at the hands 
of that sterling hero. General Thomas, at Nash- 
ville, and his army was dead to all usefulness; 
only a remnant remaining, and it not much more 
than a mob. Wheeler's cavalry was looked upon 
with as much dread by the citizens as were the 
Yankees. Wandering over the country in pred- 
atory bands, they were known as " Buttermilk 
Cavalry," and against them Governor Brown had 
issued a manifesto. 

We were paroled for the trip to Columbia, and 
consequently were not under very strict watch, a 
company of the First Florida Battery being our 
escort. They were a very clever set of boys, with 
one or two exceptions, and were without any 
means to offer us any indignities, as they had not 
a gun in the whole outfit, having been ordered to 
Columbia to man a battery there. We had sev- 



334 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

eral hundred of the sick from the hospital who 
were being sent to Macon, at which point we ar- 
rived about dayHght on the morning of the 3d. 
; The train was heavily loaded with freight, ex- 
cept one car for the guards ; consequently we had 
to take our position on the top, where we made 
ourselves as comfortable as we could; yet an all- 
night ride in February, on the top of freight cars, 
in our scantily clad condition, even in that lati- 
tude, was very uncomfortable to say the least. 
While possibly most of us slept some, we were 
nearly benumbed with cold, especially the sick, 
and when we came to unload, about sun-up, we 
found that two of our number slept " the sleep 
that knows no waking," and several more had be- 
come unconscious. 

Leaving the sick, we who were ordered to Co- 
lumbia were put aboard another train and taken to 
Gordon Junction, where' we were again delayed 
several hours. This was the third time, in the 
past seventeen months as a prisoner, that I had 
been at Gordon ; yet, like the boy who had been ab- 
sent from home a whole month and " hardly knew 
the place, things had changed so," I could hardly 
recognize it. It had verily undergone a change 
since I last saw it. 

Where before had been a nicely laid railroad 
track, nothing but the bed remained; the irons 
could be seen lying around in every conceivable 



«* VIEWING THE LANDSCAPE O'ER" 335 

shape; in some places six or eight encircled one 
tree. They lay here and there, cork-screwed, 
twisted, linked, hooked, and distorted into shapes 
almost inconceivable for a thing of that nature. 
Pieces of charred ties and fence-rails, broken 
walls, standing chimneys, and " sich," looked as 
though pandemonium might have been holding 
high carnival at this point, and broken up with a 
kind of " hell-let-loose " recklessness. Yet we 
were told it was only one of the footprints of Gen- 
eral Sherman, — the Howard end of the reptile. 
My conscience! I thought, if this is the effect of 
setting down only one foot, what a lively, rollick- 
ing old time there must have been when he came 
down with his whole heft and went to work in 
earnest. 

It was wonderful, even after eight weeks had 
passed, to " view the landscape o'er," and we 
thought it no wonder that the home guard (Dr. 
Thigpen) who went out near Andersonville to be 
ready to " close in when they got Sherman in the 
right place," returned so soon, awed by the im- 
menseness of his immensity. 

" Why," he said, in speaking to me about it, 
" he moved with the irresistible impetuosity of the 
roaring, rushing avalanche, sweeping everything 
before it, desolation and ruin marking its track. 
Our little company of home guards didn't seem to 
attract his attention any more than a feather 



336 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

would the tornado, and I just thought the health- 
iest place for me was at home. I might as well be 
there as to be running ahead of Sherman, so I left, 
and here I am, glad to be here." 

I must say I took a great deal of silent satis- 
faction from the thought that where we now 
stood an army of bluecoats, possibly my own reg- 
iment, had been camped but a few weeks before, 
and left their work so plainly inscribed. It was 
almost as good as a letter from the regiment, tell- 
ing plainly that they were all well and full of their 
fun. 

The track had been relaid up to within a mile of 
Milledgeville, where we left the train and went 
into quarters for the night. We had to camp as 
we could find room among a multitude of Confed- 
erate soldiers who were being transferred from 
Hood's army to the East. They were very free 
to talk, and expressed themselves as much dis- 
couraged. I asked one of them their destination ; 
he said he did not know, but supposed they were 
for the Eastern army, adding : 

" We've been badly whipped and cut up by 
General Thomas at Nashville, and I suppose they 
want to finish us up in front of Sherman or Grant. 
It looks as if running is our business now, and we 
are getting tired of it and want to go home to our 
families." 

They were very kind to us, furnishing utensils 



MILLEDGEVILLE 337 

for preparing our supper, and in some cases shar- 
ing their rations with us. As this was the end of 
the railroad we had to march across country to an- 
other line running from Atlanta to Augusta. 

I was disappointed in Milledgeville ; it pre- 
sented a very dilapidated appearance that morn- 
ing, whether owing to the recent Yankee invasion 
or to natural decay, I could not tell, but we ex- 
pected more in the capital of a State like Georgia. 
We found that the bridge across the Oconee, 
owing to Yankee cussedness or the result of war, 
had passed into the list of things that were, and 
we had to cross on a pontoon bridge, following 
the direction of the road grade which had never 
been finished to Carnak. 

We marched along very leisurely, our squad 
sometimes measuring a mile or more in length. 
Our escorts were mostly men of leisure and did 
not seem to care so long as we kept in motion. 
We enjoyed hugely the passing through the coun- 
try in this way. The marches were so easy that 
we stood it better than we expected, and had as 
much freedom as the guards themselves. The 
citizens along the way took us all for Confeder- 
ates guarding the little squad of negroes. 

We only made ten miles on our first day's 
march, and then camped to await the captain of 
the battery, who came that evening. Next day, 
about eleven o'clock, we reached Sparta, and lay 



338 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

by for several hours, as it was Sunday. A num- 
ber of the citizens came out to where we were 
stopping in a little grove, just at the edge of the 
town, apparently to talk up the situation. They 
had a great many questions to ask us regarding 
the negro prisoners, where they were captured, 
what we intended doing with them, etc. I was 
talking with a party one of whom, an old man, 
claiming to have been born in Massachusetts, was 
very bitter in his feeling against the North. He 
seemed to be spokesman for the crowd, and, sup- 
posing I was one in charge of the negroes, asked 
me: 

" Where are you bringing those black fellows 
from?" 

" From Andersonville," I replied. 

" Not prisoners of war, are they? " 

" Oh yes ; regular soldiers captured in Hne of 
duty." 

" Where are you going with them ? " was the 
next question. 

" Taking them to Columbia, S. C, under an 
order from General Winder ; we suppose he wants 
them to do drudgery about the prison hospital at 
that place," was my reply. 

" You'd better a damned sight send them back 
to their masters and let them take care of them," 
he rejoined. 

" You are wrong there," I said, " those fellows 



'* NIGGER SOLDIERS " 339 

have never been slaves ; they are free-born North- 
ern darkeys ; if you will converse with them you'll 
find they are much better informed than darkeys 
reared in slavery. Those fellows can all read and 
write." (I didn't know whether they could or 
not, but put that in on general principles. ) 

" The — - have no business down 

here fighting white men, then. You'd better a 
damned sight take them down into the timber and 
run them up or shoot them, than to be guarding 
them through the country here; don't you think 
so? " asked this Northern-born Southerner. 

" What? " I exclaimed. *' Would you have us 
hang or shoot a lot of defenseless prisoners, sim- 
ply because they are black and have been so un- 
fortunate as to fall into our hands ? " 

" No," said he; "I can't say that it would be 
right to do it now, after they have been taken 
once; but the great mistake is in our boys suffer- 
ing them to become prisoners ; they ought to shoot 
them down whenever they catch them bearing 
arms in battle." 

" Ah, then you'd raise the black flag against the 
black man," said I. " You are opposed to giving 
them any quarter ? " 

"Yes, I am," he replied; "the 

, they ought to be shot down where they 

are caught, when found bearing arms." 

" Well now," I said, " you had better take your 



340 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

musket and go right to the front to do that kind 
of work. You'll find plenty of them up there to 
shoot at. You ought not to be back here in the 
rear, talking of hanging defenceless prisoners 
whom somebody else has taken." 

Exit the Confederate with a flea in his ear. 
The guards, several of whom had heard the con- 
versation, enjoyed the fellow's discomfiture very 
much. Whether he ever found out that he was 
talking to a Yankee I do not know. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

ROBERT TOOMBS AND ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS 

WE reached Warrenton, to which point the 
cars were running over a temporary- 
track, a mere miHtary make-shift. We remained 
at this point until next evening, reaching Carnak 
early next morning. Here we expected to take 
train for Augusta, but learned that there was an 
obstacle in the way of reaching Columbia by that 
route, General Sherman being reported at or in 
the vicinity of Branchville. So, to prevent run- 
ning across our friends, it became necessary for us 
to perform a flank movement by running up to 
.Washington, the terminus of another branch 
road. 

It was a very chilly day, and I was suffering 
from the effects of a severe sprain in the small of 
my back, received about two months before I left 
Andersonville, caused by having the weight of a 
heavy box thrown onto me suddenly while un- 
loading some drugs. It seemed to me at the time 
that my back cracked as loud as a pistol report; 
it " wilted " me, to use an army expression, and I 
could not walk a step for several weeks. The 
341 



342 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

marching and the motion of cars had aggra- 
vated the trouble so that I was glad to lie by. 

We remained here for two days, encamped in 
a grove close to town. This was the home of 
Robert Toombs, so, notwithstanding my lame- 
ness, I managed to get to town to take a view of 
his residence. He seemed to live in good style, 
judging from external signs. His house, set back 
from the street, and almost hidden in shrubbery 
and trees, must have been a pleasant retreat dur- 
ing hot weather. On the opposite or south side 
of the street was his brother's residence, also a 
fine building for those days. 

We talked with several citizens, who expressed 
considerable dissatisfaction at the state of affairs 
in the South. The financial burdens of the Con- 
federacy were beginning to be extremely op- 
pressive, every town having its revenue collector, 
who made heavy demands upon all products of the 
land. The people were beginning to look upon the 
thing as being a grinding tyranny. Nearly all 
the able-bodied males were enrolled in some ca- 
pacity, and yet Sherman could wander around 
and there were not enough people left to offer any 
opposition to him. 

Near where we encamped was a saltpetre leach, 
there being a number of leaches of several tons 
capacity. These were filled with earth collected 
from beneath the houses in the town, after which 



ROBERT TOOMBS 343 

it was leached in the same manner that ashes are 
leached for lye in making soap. The lixivium 
was then evaporated in large pans. The amount 
of saltpetre collected in this way was small, but it 
kept several wealthy men's sons in government 
employ out of reach of danger. The young man 
who seemed to have charge was communicative, 
and I asked him in regard to the work. He said 
it was attended with a great deal of labor and 
small results. It was very laborious work getting 
the dirt from under the houses, though of course 
it was done by negroes. Then it required sev- 
eral days to exhaust a stand. A run usually 
made from six to eight pounds of commercial 
saltpetre, so that the manufacture of rebel powder 
in all its details would be interesting to follow. 

The citizens began to object to the Yankees 
having the freedom of the town, urging that we 
were liable to do some act of incendiarism that 
would endanger the whole place, or that we might 
inflame the minds of the negroes and cause trouble 
in that way. Consequently we were ordered to 
remain in camp unless accompanied by a guard. 
Brave Washingtonians ! They patrolled the town 
the night before we left. 

Being the home of a noted Southern leader, we 
had felt considerable interest in seeing all we 
could of the place. Perhaps no other man in the 
State of Georgia had more to do in shaping the 



344 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

destiny of the State and drawing it into the vor- 
tex of secession than had Robert Toombs. Reared 
in the doctrines of Calhoun, and full of Southern 
bigotry, he was an enemy to the broad principles 
of a republican government, — a government of 
the people by the people for the people; and he 
was well fitted to lead in an attempt to overthrow 
it. As one of the representatives of his State in 
Congress, he had solemnly pledged himself to sup- 
port the Constitution of the United States; yet 
early in the struggle he was one of the most po- 
tent and vindictive in seeking its overthrow, bit- 
terly opposing Alexander H. Stephens in debate 
at Milledgeville, when he so earnestly pleaded 
with his people to remain true to the old flag. 
His strong will so overcame the weaker one of 
Stephens, that he was finally made to succumb 
and go with the tide. 

There is no question but that if Stephens had 
been possessed of the staunch patriotism and no- 
ble firmness of Parson Brownlow, he would have 
counterbalanced the damnable perfidy of Toombs 
(that being the mildest construction I can put 
upon his actions), and become a rally ing-point 
around which the Union element of Georgia — and 
it was strong — would have gathered and become 
invincible as was the band of hardy mountaineers 
who, clustering around Brownlow, proved the 
salvation of east Tennessee. As it was, his vacil- 



THE NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 345 

latlon was as dangerous, and I do not know but 
worse, to the whole South, than was Toombs's 
open hatred, as Toombs's influence was not felt 
beyond his State, while that of Stephens was na- 
tional in its character. We find the perfidy of the 
one and the weakness of the other rewarded by 
high positions in the Confederate Assembly; 
Stephens being elected Vice-President and 
Toombs being appointed Secretary of State. 

It was a most unfortunate thing for the South 
that the mass of her people were not capable of 
intelligently investigating the great questions that 
led to secession, because they could not read, and 
consequently could not study them in the quiet of 
home, but were compelled to receive instruction 
from these very leaders, and generally under the 
influence of strong political excitement, in which 
blind fanaticism loves to measure swords with 
better judgment. The whole history of seces- 
sion, from its inception to its close, is the most 
unanswerable argument, practically demonstrat- 
ed, that could possibly be given in affirmation of 
education being the cornerstone and bulwark 
of a republican form of government. It was the 
demonstration of the problem that reduced it to a 
fact. It should stand out as an everlasting me- 
morial, warning us as a nation to frown down 
and treat as a national enemy any party, whether 
civil or ecclesiastic, that offers any discourage- 



346 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ment to the free dissemination of knowledge in 
our public schools. Educate our children, and 
political demagogism will lose its power to sway. 
Legislate to circumscribe the free education of 
our youth, and we legislate to political death. 
Ignorance and error go hand in hand, and fa- 
naticism is their legitimate offspring. 

Perhaps the citizens of Toombs's native town 
were justified in their fears that some of us might 
apply the incendiary torch to his residence. They 
doubtless had observed our scrutiny of the build- 
ings, a pertinent fact being that there are none so 
afraid of justice as those who feel they have not 
had their past deserts at her hands. 



CHAPTER XLIV 

JOHN CALHOUN AND STATE RIGHTS 

AS Washington was the terminus of the 
road, we took up the hne of march in the 
direction of Abbeville, S. C. One of the pecu- 
liarly noticeable features of our march through 
the country was the ease with which we could 
procure eatables from the negroes, while the 
guards could not get anything either by money 
or by threats. The negroes w^re very shrewd, in 
point of intelligence much beyond what was ac- 
corded them by the South, and they seemed intui- 
tively to know the Yankee from the Rebel. While 
they were ready and quick in supplying us, if the 
guards attempted to secure anything they would 
declare, " We don't got nuffin' to give." Some- 
times one would attempt to impersonate a Yan- 
kee, but it would not win, " You no Yankee," 
they would say. The guards generally took it in 
pretty good part, but sometimes they would 
threaten to kill " the damned woolly-heads." 

The first day out from Washington, as we were 
marching along, we came to a point from which 
we could see several miles ahead, and wondered at 
347 



348 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the peculiar appearance of the trees, which in the 
distance seemed covered with snow. As we ad- 
vanced, however, we found ourselves in the track 
of a tornado that had passed a few days before, 
and, in its course, had demolished a cotton-gin 
and spread its contents in such a way as to give 
the peculiar appearance we had noted. Several 
new houses had been turned or moved on their 
foundations ; trees were blown down or wrenched 
off; fences were demolished and cotton was 
strung on everything erect for nearly a mile. 

As we neared the Savannah River the way 
seemed to become more animated and lifelike. 
We encountered many refugees and white fami- 
lies fleeing from South Carolina with their effects, 
to save them from Sherman, seeking temporary 
refuge in Georgia. If it had not been that truth 
knocked all the poetry out of the situation, it 
would really have been laughable in many cases 
(not but what it was serious enough to those im- 
mediately interested), but the Yankee " cussed- 
ness " was so big in us that we could not but feel 
more amused than otherwise and more gratified 
than cast down. It made us feel as though we 
were " getting the moccasin on the other foot." 

About noon, or soon after, on the second day, 
we came to the Savannah River at the confluence 
of the Broad. Crossing right at the fork we 
stood once more on the " sacred soil " of South 



JOHN C. CALHOUN 349 

Carolina. In the early evening we filed off onto 
a wood-covered hillside and camped for the night. 
Near by was an old fashioned hewed log house of 
considerable size, from the well of which we got 
our water for cooking purposes. 

And now we found that we had in truth 
camped on " sacred " ground. That house was 
the hallowed shrine toward which all true South- 
erners of the old regime pray, — the Mecca, so to 
speak, of the Confederacy, the fountain of State 
rights. Beneath that roof a child had been born 
in years past, who developed into the original se- 
cessionist and nullifier, John Caldwell Calhoun, 
a man of remarkable ability in some respects and 
dwarfed in others. Reared in a hollow, the nar- 
rowness of his surroundings possibly left its im- 
press on his character; at least he was not a man 
of such broad views as would make him a safe 
manipulator of public affairs pertaining to a re- 
publican form of government. He did not ap- 
pear capable of those higher essentials, those ex- 
pansive ideas, that would enable him to grasp and 
solve the problem of a united country composed 
of dissimilar elements bound together, as one and 
indivisible, in Federal compact; and, rather than 
such a bond should result, he would sacrifice the 
whole to a part. He sought to establish and per- 
petuate a slave oligarchy ; for the whole question 
cf the much-talked-of " Southern rights " sim- 



350 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

mers itself down to a desire in a few individuals 
to establish for themselves a limited monarchy 
based on an aristocracy fastened by that peculiar- 
ly Southern institution, African slavery, itself a 
source of licentious indolence and vice. 



CHAPTER XLV 

THE END APPROACHING 

EARLY in our next day's march we passed the 
really beautiful mansion of another and later 
Calhoun, beautifully embowered in a grove on a 
rising knoll. Its colonial verandas and projecting 
roof gave it a subdued grandeur that bespoke the 
home of a well-to-do planter, and it was the only 
one we had passed in all our march across coun- 
try. It seemed to give a standing invitation to 
the weary traveller to stop in and rest. It had the 
really hospitable look so frequently spoken of by 
travellers through the South in days gone by. 

A sharp turn in the road which follows the 
trend of the narrow valley, up a steep pitch, 
brought us into Abbeville, close under the walls 
of a church whose tapering spire and neatly pro- 
portioned vane carried our minds back to the 
village-dotted hills of our own beloved Ohio. We 
had passed, too, from the region of pines into 
forests of hard woods, which helped to carry out 
the association and brought to us new-born hopes. 
We camped in a grove near the southern part of 
the town, if simply enjoying the protection of 
351 



352 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the trees could be called camping. As I was still 
suffering severely with my sprained back, my 
friend Atwater collected me a bed of leaves, and 
spread an old piece of tent cloth over them, so I 
rested comparatively easy, though the marching 
had about played me out. I was glad to learn 
that we would probably remain here over Sunday, 
a rest somewhat necessitated by my condition, as 
I could not stand alone next day. The weather 
was all we could desire ; even at that early season 
we felt no inconvenience from being in the open 
air without fire save to cook by. 

We had now been nearly two weeks on the way 
from Andersonville, and Columbia was still in 
the future. From the little news and vague 
rumors that reached us from the negroes who 
managed to get around, we learned that it was 
very doubtful if we would ever get there. We 
resembled a sailless and rudderless bark on the 
wide ocean, now drifting with the wind, and now 
becalmed. It was very evident that our whole 
march from Gordonville had been a series of flank 
movements to avoid meeting our friends, who, 
we were morally certain, were at no time more 
than fifty miles away. It was also certain, from 
the conduct of the guards, that adverse winds 
were blowing against the Confederate ship of 
State, though to what extent we could not tell. 
It was patent, however, from our manner of 



FLANK MOVEMENTS 353 

marching, that we were keeping just about par- 
allel with Sherman's army, and exercising no little 
caution to keep out of his way. We learned also 
that General Winder, under whose orders we were 
moving, had died of apoplexy since we started. 
Our guards therefore determined to carry out 
their first instructions to take us as near to Co- 
lumbia as prudence would permit. 

On the morning of the third day, February 13, 
we took the train and ran several hours until we 
came to a washout in the road, when it became 
necessary for us again to take to the highway. 
We were nothing loth to do so, as we courted de- 
lay, and we generally made easy marches, our 
guards not feeling called upon to rush matters. 
It seemed to be a kind of holiday with all con- 
cerned. We were now travelling toward Colum- 
bia from the west and expected to meet a train 
at Alston that would carry us there that evening, 
provided our friends did not get there before us 
and necessitate another flank movement on our 
part. We passed squads of people hurrying into 
the " back country," in wagons and carts, on 
horseback, on muleback, and in every conceivable 
v/ay; some carrying immense bundles on their 
backs, some driving cattle, sheep, hogs, turkeys, 
geese, and even goats. Occasionally we would 
see a fine carriage loaded with women and 
children, and with trunks, bedding, and light fur- 



354 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

niture piled on top, — like the rest, seemingly in- 
tent on reaching the back country. This of course 
was an evidence of something behind. As the 
long line of scum indicates the approach of the 
tidal swell, so this anxious hurrying away from 
Columbia indicated the near approach of a power 
as irresistible in its course as the waves of the sea. 
" Whar you-all going, uncle ? " asked one of 
the guards of an old, gray-headed negro who had 
an immense bundle of bedding on his head; 
" what's the matter with you-all ? " 

" Runnin' away from Sherman, sah ; he's dun 
comin' sure, sah ; speck dey'll be in Columbia befo' 
night; dey's only fifteen miles away, sah, and 
comin' strait along 's fast as dey can, sure." 
" Well, but whar you going? " 
" Don't know, sah, dat's sure ! " 
" Well, for God's sake, uncle, don't run too far, 
or you'll run out on the other side; you will as 
sure as you're born, it's getting small now." 

Those negroes looked a deal more than they 
spoke. As eye telegraphed to eye we fully un- 
derstood that there was no hope of our reaching 
Columbia that night, if ever. We reached Als- 
ton, some twelve miles west-by-north of Colum- 
bia, about noon, and stopped to let the company 
close up. The Confederates drew to one side to 
hold a consultation, and we were enjoying the rest 
afforded by the halt when the ominous boom of a 



AVOIDING OUR FRIENDS 355 

cannon reached us from the direction of Colum- 
bia. Another and still another. Of course we 
knew not of what nature they were, but supposed 
they were signal guns, and we took it as an evi- 
dence that Sherman was not far away. 

It became a question with us whether our 
guards would make any further advance in that 
direction, — a question which was soon answered 
by the order to fall in. We started in a direction 
to the left and at right angles to the road to Co- 
lumbia. We were once more adrift, and naviga- 
tion was becoming dangerous. We were execut- 
ing another flank movement to avoid our friends, 
and moving on Winsboro. The booming cannon 
seemed to give fresh impetus to the flying citi- 
zens ; all was bustle and confusion. Consternation 
seemed to seize on all. It was the first time in my 
army experience that I happened to be in position 
to observe the effect of an approaching victorious 
enemy upon the inhabitants of the country. There 
seemed to be no thought of resistance, but an un- 
controllable desire to abandon everything. Tak- 
ing the expression of the citizens as my criterion, 
I could have supposed we were in imminent dan- 
ger of being captured by a band who would mer- 
cilessly trample us into the dust and wipe out 
every trace of our existence, — an invader as ruth- 
less as the flood. Neighbor inspired neighbor 
with terror until the mental agony of women and 



3S6 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

children was piteous to see, as they sought safety 
in flight, loading themselves with whatever could 
be loosely gathered together in their hasty flight. 

Ours was really a peculiar position. We were 
a squad of Yankees loose behind the scenes, yet 
no one seemed to notice us or think anything of 
our being there. Possibly they did not know we 
were not of them. The guards did not seem to 
care any more than the rest, and paid no attention 
to us when we reached Winsboro other than to 
find quarters for us and themselves in the court 
house. We passed the evening rather uproar- 
iously. There happened to be an old violin and 
a drunken Irishman in the crowd, and between the 
two we had a loud time of it. The prisoners' 
squad was in excellent spirits, of course. The 
fact could be concealed no longer that the Con- 
federate balloon had been punctured and was in 
a state of collapse. We had no longer Anderson- 
ville to dread, as they would not dare to retain us, 
and there was a possibility, if we remained in 
Winsboro long, " of falling into our own hands," 
as one of the party jocularly expressed it. 

The confusion and hubbub on the streets, and 
the jam on the railroad, continued through the 
night, and by early dawn we were in the thick of 
it, seeing what was to be seen and enjoying the up- 
roar. Trains were moving prisoners and valua- 
bles from Columbia with a recklessness indicative 



"THE KINGDOM COMING!" 357 

of haste. We went to the depot and watched the 
citizens hurrying- their effects aboard the cars, and 
I thought Sherman's army would have been safer 
hands for furniture to fall into. The baggage- 
smasher was in his glory, and got his work in 
well. I got on top of a car on the side track, be- 
side a Confederate officer who was in charge of 
the Yankee officers from Columbia prison. The 
jam was such that he could not get his trains out, 
and the Yankees would insist on poking their 
heads out of the freight car doors, which made 
him furious. He drew his sword and made a 
pass at one, and threatened to shoot another, 
yelling at the guards to shoot the first Yankee 

that showed his head. 

Everybody was excited ; the trains from below 
seemed to have the right of way, — they held it at 
least, and Winsboro could not get her cars at- 
tached to any of them. Consequently everyone 
was in a perfect fever of excitement and suspense 
lest Sherman's cavalry should come in on them 
and destroy everything. I presume it was well 
for us that we were not known as Yankees; but 
oh ! how we enjoyed it, having nothing at stake ! 
We felt— 

"It must be now the Kingdom coming, the Year of 
Jubilee." 

I saw one of the bankers roll a keg full of specie 



358 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

out of the bank along the pavement, and thought 
at the time that if Kilpatrick's cavalry should hap- 
pen to drop in on him somebody would get a nice 
haul. 

The court house had a very tall spire, in which 
was fixed a town clock. While all was confusion 
below, Mr. Atwater and myself found our way 
up into the tower and set the machinery of the old 
clock to running. We then went down into the 
street and mingled with the crowd. Pretty soon 
the " iron tongue of time " in the tower began to 
sound. Its first note had scarcely rung out before 
nearly every eye was turned in that direction. 
Heads were shaken ominously; the old clock had 
spoken ; the old clock that had not been in running 
order since the war began had broken silence. 
What could it mean? Was it a warning? As 
we passed along the street we could hear them 
ask, — 

" Did you hear the old clock strike? It struck 
three!" 

I think if Gabriel had given a toot or two on 
his horn it would not have inspired more awe than 
did the clock in the steeple as it sounded that day 
over the doomed town. People's minds were in 
that state of extreme tension that anything unex- 
pected seemed almost to overcome them. I'll 
venture to say that you will find parties in that 
country who will solemnly swear the old clock 



A RELIC 359 

struck a warning; for three days from that time 
Winsboro was in Yankee hands and in flames. 
The old clock fell with the rest. 

Mr. Atwater secured a relic from the desk in 
the court house, in the shape of the " town whip," 
such an instrument as I have described as used in 
the punishment of " Old Sue " at Andersonville. 
We supposed that it was used in the public chas- 
tisement of negroes. The handle was all notched 
up, indicative, perhaps, of the number of victims 
who had felt its weight. I think Mr. Atwater 
told me, after the war, that he had presented it to 
the National Museum at Washington as a relic of 
the days of darkness. 

It was very evident from the railroad jam and 
the overcrowded condition of the cars from below 
that we would have to spend another night in the 
court house. We were much more crowded the 
second night, owing to straggling soldiers coming 
in to lodge, but we got along very well together. 
One young man, who was returning to his regi- 
ment from furlough, had a box filled with such 
luxuries as a loving mother would be apt to find 
for her boy when sending him away to the front. 
This regiment was with Lee at Richmond. Af- 
ter he had opened his box he asked if I would not 
come and eat with him, saying he could perhaps 
give me more generous fare than I would other- 
wise get, and as the roads were in such a crowded 



36o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

condition he would not be able to carry his box 
with him. Thanking him kindly I took a seat be- 
side him on the floor, and " Yank " and " Con- 
fed " broke bread together. 

We feasted and chatted together harmoniously, 
not a word passing between us indicative of the 
difference in our characters, and I did not know 
whether he knew me as a prisoner until after we 
had finished eating, when he remarked that he had 
seen an article in the paper regarding an exchange 
of prisoners that might interest me, and that if 
he could find a paper on the street he would secure 
it for me. I saw no more of him that night, but 
next morning he came hurrying in with the pa- 
per, wishing, as he waved an adieu, that I might 
soon have a happy realization of the article in 
question, — which was to the effect that in all prob- 
ability an exchange of all prisoners held by either 
side would soon be effected. 

As I went into the street I saw one of our squad 
engaged in an amicable discussion with a citizen 
and joined myself to the group in time to hear the 
stranger (whom I think they called Judge Rey- 
nolds) giving expression to an argument so orig- 
inal in part that I took it down, and here produce 
it as an example of the feeling of representative 
Southern men, for he said he had once represented 
his State in Congress. He was from Charleston. 
It seems they were discussing the capability of the 



SOUTHERN NECESSITIES 361 

Southern States to maintain an existence inde- 
pendent of the North, and the eternal fitness of 
slavery, giving the latter an attribute I had never 
before seen or heard accredited to it. 

" Why," said the judge, " the South is depen- 
dent on the North for none of the necessaries of 
life. We have everything within our borders 
that is necessary for the building up of one of the 
greatest commercial countries in the world. We 
have fine harbors and navigable rivers, plenty of 
lumber for shipbuilding and all mechanical pur- 
poses, and an inexhaustible quantity of iron and 
coal. Gold is found in our mountains, also mar- 
ble and building stone. We can raise plenty of 
cotton for factories, and have some of the finest 
unimproved waterpowers in the world, where fac- 
tories can be run at small expense to work up the 
raw material. We raise the finest tobacco in the 
world outside of Cuba, which, with rice and sug- 
ar, the great commodities of the world, we can 
export as a source of revenue. Your great North 
depends upon us for all these things, and has to 
buy them from us as necessaries, while we are de- 
pendent on her for nothing but ice and whores. 
These are all we get from the North, and, as lux- 
uries, we can dispense with them. By slavery we 
hold our females from becoming prostitutes: our 
slave women serve us as mistresses, thereby re- 
moving from our young women the temptations 



362 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

that would otherwise be urged upon them. Sla- 
very is the great safety valve of the South." 

A portion of the judge's argument, regarding 
the slave women, was evidently true, from the 
great number of almost white slaves that could 
be seen in any portion of the South. In fact I 
have seen many handsome women who were 
slaves, in whom not the slightest trace of negro 
blood could be discerned. What influence all 
this might have had in establishing a high stand- 
ard of virtue among the fair daughters of Dixie 
I am not able to say^ but it seemed to me an ad- 
mission that should have been a cause for shame 
rather than an admitted argument in favor of 
slavery. 



CHAPTER XLVI 

THE PRISON HELL AT SALISBURY 

THAT afternoon we bade adieu to Winsboro, 
boarding a train for the North, and after an 
all-night ride we arrived at Charlotte, N. C. 
Here there was a complete jam; the trains from 
Columbia stopped here, and every available foot 
of track seemed occupied. The Treasury and 
Engraving Departments of the Confederacy oc- 
cupied several trains. The attaches of these de- 
partments were mostly women. The " promise to 
pay two years after the ratification of a treaty of 
peace " could not stand the pressure of Sherman's 
boys in blue, and rolled out of Columbia in a live- 
ly manner, though what for I never could imag- 
ine. Certainly they had nothing our boys would 
care for. Their miserable paper was then freely 
offered by the citizens and soldiers at twenty dol- 
lars for one in greenbacks, the money of the 
"Lincoln hirelings." I wondered how I would 
feel fighting for a cause, and offering that amount 
of its medium for one of the medium of my ene- 
my, and that, too, to a prisoner in my hands. It 
was a kind of pseudo confidence in the stability of 
363 



364 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the cause that bore a lie on its face. We taunted 
them considerably regarding it. Southern busi- 
ness men would curse the United States and tell 
how they were willing to die and rot in the " last 
ditch " before they would consent to live again 
under such a despotic government, and how easily 
they could get along without any help from the 
" damned Yankee," while at the same time a 
greenback dollar went much farther with them 
toward feeding the hungry and clothing the naked 
than did a Confederate " promise to pay." They 
did not stop to consider the want of harmony be- 
tween their actions and professions. It looked 
like madness, though we had to confess that this 
discrimination in favor of greenbacks showed 
method. 

I think I heard more profanity in those four 
days of railroad jamming than generally falls to 
an ordinary lifetime. The unsavory side of hu- 
man nature seemed to be atop, and it is wonderful 
how man's selfishness reveals itself under such 
excitement. Demoralization ruled with a high 
hand, and respect for the gentler sex and tender 
youth was lost sight of. The blush of modesty 
availed not. 

After another night's delay we boarded the 
train, and in due time, without further mishap, 
brought up at Salisbury, N. C. Here was located 
another of the prison hells, and it seemed for a 



ANOTHER STOCKADE 365 

time as though our evil star was in the ascendant, 
for after leaving the train we were marched to 
the prison stockade and once more we were sur- 
rounded by frowning guards and made the com- 
panions of misery and filth. 

We found Salisbury some little improvement 
on Andersonville, though not much. There were 
several factory buildings inside the enclosure 
which were available for hospital use, and under- 
neath the buildings quite a number of the boys 
found good comfortable quarters. Aside from 
these there were no shelters or accommodations 
provided, and the men fared similarly to those at 
Andersonville. The water here was drawn from 
wells, and the ground, being of a clayey nature, 
held the water so that the quarters were damp 
and the streets muddy during rainy weather. One 
of the factory buildings was a prison for Confed- 
erate military offenders, deserters, etc. Our two 
weeks' exercise in the open country and pure air 
had restored acuteness to our olfactory nerves, so 
that we were very sensible of the odor that per- 
vaded the place, similar to the loathsome smell 
that attaches to a pest-house. We had consider- 
able difficulty in finding an unimproved tract to 
file a claim upon, but succeeded finally, by dicker- 
ing and squatting, in getting room to lie down. 
Of course that was all we needed, and with that 
we were satisfied and felt ourselves fortunate. 



366 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

We found the place under the charge of Major 
Moffit, who was commanding at Danville during 
our sojourn there. Smith, who had been paroled 
as butcher under the Major at the former place, 
saw him the second day of our confinement and 
told him we had been paroled at Andersonville 
for the trip around to Columbia ; that we had been 
faithful to our pledge all the time, though we had 
had ample opportunity of escaping, and he 
thought that it was not in good faith for them 
thus to confine us. Major Moffit claimed not to 
be aware of these facts, and told Smith to have all 
the whites of the party at the gate next morning, 
when he would take us out and send us north on 
the first train and have us exchanged at Wil- 
mington. 

When Smith came back we were busy in trying 
to improvise a shelter from our scant wardrobes. 
After standing by and watching our ingenuity for 
a time, he said, " Well, you needn't bother your- 
selves about a shelter. Why ? Oh, we are going 
out of here in the morning! " Then he told us 
his conversation with the Major, We had him 
repeat it the second time, and then we made him 
sit down on the blanket and tell us once more, and 
what Moffit had said. It was hard for us to real- 
ize at one telling. We asked him if he thought 
Moffit meant it. 

" Yes, I do," he said ; " any way it won't be 



A RIFT IN THE CLOUD 367 

long to wait, so we'll just make ourselves as com- 
fortable as we can and finish our improvements 
to-morrow." 

" I vow," said Atwater, cutting a pigeon-wing, 
"that'll be bully!" 

It was a ray of hope to say the least, a straw to 
grasp at, a theme for dreams through the night. 
It seemed almost too good to hope for, and yet 
why should we not be exchanged after nearly 
eighteen long weary months of privations, anx- 
iety, and sufferings beyond the power of pen to 
describe. We had been looking for a rift in the 
cloud, through which a ray of light might pene- 
trate, on which to base a hope of deliverance. And 
now would to-morrow come? Ah, yes; but 
would Moffit come with it, or was this a " delu- 
sive hope," an ignis fatuus, to lead us into the 
fastness of the swamp, that we might be swal- 
lowed in the quagmire of despair? No! some- 
thing seemed to assure us that all would be well. 
We had marked the decadence of the Southern 
cause in marching through Georgia and South 
Carolina, and we felt that our tribulations were 
near an end. We spent the greater part of the 
night in talking about it. There was " no slumber 
for the eyes nor sleep for the eyelids " that night. 
To-morrow, we felt, would of a surety see the be- 
ginning of the end, and in accord with that belief 
early morning found us waiting by the gate. 



368 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

The sun's first rays, as they shot across the pen, 
cast our shadows on the gate, waiting, trembhng 
between hope and fear. Higher and higher the 
day-god cHmbed his accustomed way, until the 
half of his first quadrant had been accompHshed, 
and still we stood within. We had almost given 
up, when the gate slowly turned back on its 
hinges and Major Mof^fit stood before us, paper in 
hand. As our names were called we passed out 
one at a time and were immediately taken to the 
depot. It would be impossible to tell what emo- 
tions filled our breasts as the gates closed behind 
us. We were glad, under the circumstances, that 
we had been placed in this stockade, being the 
fifth prison in which we had been confined. It 
gave us an opportunity of studying the character 
of each. 

The prisoners at Salisbury told us how they 
had been shot at on the slightest provocation, and 
had been deprived of their rations for fancied mis- 
demeanors, and how on one occasion even artil- 
lery had been brought to bear on them. This was 
some time in November, 1864, about three months 
before we were confined there. It appeared from 
their report that several of the squads had been 
deprived of rations for several days because of 
some ofYence committed by members belonging 
to those squads, and the authorities cut ofT the ra- 
tions of the whole squad until the offenders were 



THE OUTBREAK 369 

given up. Possibly they were known, possibly 
not; I did not learn as to that. The men were 
driven to desperation by such treatment, and de- 
clared they might as well die trying to make their 
escape as to die of starvation, so they organized, 
and when the relief guard came they overpowered 
them and seized their guns. In the melee two of 
the guards were killed and several wounded. The 
alarm of an outbreak was immediately sounded 
and the forces and citizens called to arms. It 
must be remembered that only a very small num- 
ber of those confined there were engaged in the 
revolt. Yet the authorities ordered two field- 
pieces mounted on the walls to be double-shotted 
and discharged into the mass. The guards and 
citizens fired at the men indiscriminately, and not- 
withstanding that five or ten minutes of such 
work were sufficient to quell the disturbance and 
to drive every man to the shelter of his impro- 
vised tent, they continued for some time to shoot 
at any one who showed himself, thus wounding 
many and endangering the lives of all, whether 
guilty or not. There were fifteen killed and 
something over fifty wounded. 

As Salisbury was our last prison I will say here, 
after a careful study and sad experience in so 
many of them, that to me the whole system of 
rebel prisons seemed to be a studied, systematized 
mode of torture intended to offset the arming of 



3 70 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

the negro by the North. As the Southern cause 
began to wane, and the conviction was brought 
home to the Confederates of how they had under- 
rated the strength and valor of the North, and had 
equally overrated the prowess of the chivalric 
South, the vindictive spirit natural to the training 
they had received under the fostering influence of 
slavery manifested itself in their treatment of the 
prisoners. Note General Forrest's brutal, inhu- 
man butchery of the negro soldiers and their 
white officers at Fort Pillow, — an act that should 
have given his name to infamy and his body as 
food to buzzards. This same vindictiveness ran 
through the whole system and history of rebel 
prisons. During my nearly eighteen months' ex- 
perience I was (very fortunately for myself) at 
different times placed in position carefully to 
study and observe its workings. All the prison- 
keepers, so far as my observation extended, were 
men of strong Southern prejudices, in whom the 
animal nature was strongly marked, and the moral 
impulses were correspondingly weak. The faith- 
fulness with which they followed the spirit of 
malice, and the implacable fidelity with which they 
pushed it to the bitter end, needs no further evi- 
dence than the many thousands of graves of 
Union soldiers in the prison cemeteries, while 
thousands yet alive show in their shattered con- 
stitutions the fruits of prison life. Why was it 



SOUTHERN VINDICTIVENESS 371 

that the Northern prisons did not show similar 
results? Let any candid person contrast the re- 
sults of the two systems, and they will find out 
that what I say cannot be gainsaid. The delib- 
erate system of torture inaugurated and so faith- 
fully executed in the prison pens of the South are 
historic facts so deeply graven that time can 
scarcely obliterate them. 



CHAPTER XLVII 
A slaveholder's dilemma 

REACHING the depot we found that no pro- 
vision had been made for sending us away, 
so that all we could do was to await further de- 
velopments. We had been so long under prison 
discipline and whimsies that we did not try to look 
farther ahead than the present moment; so we 
made the best disposition we could of ourselves to 
secure personal comfort if we had to remain any 
time in the depot. 

We had in our squad an Irishman from the 
Twenty-seventh Massachusetts, who, with that 
peculiar faculty known only to those initiated, 
managed to get enough tanglefoot to keep up a 
double head of steam, that kept us at our wits' 
ends to keep him in proper bounds. We hadn't 
been out of the pen an hour before Pat came 
around the corner of the depot singing an Irish 
bacchanalian song. Starting off with his body 
bent forward, he would spring suddenly erect and 
bring his hands down to his hips with a slap. 
Merging his steps into a double shuffle, he would 
wind up with " St. Patrick's Day " and cap 

372 



" PAT " IN HIS GLORY 373 

the whole by springing in the air, cracking 
his feet together, and shouting " Hoorah for 
the bloody Twenty-Seventh and the shamrock 
of ould Ireland ! " — then coming to " attention " 
in front of a squad of negroes who had clustered 
around to watch his movements. He was irre- 
pressible in his maudlin fun. One of his auditors, 
who had aspired to the dignity of a very fair plug 
hat and polished boots, attracted his attention 
finally, and, stepping up to him, he said : " Jabers, 
and that's a foine hat yees afther wearing, my 
good mon, an maybe it's afther thrading with a 
por devil loike me, ye'd be at now," — at the same 
time lifting the darkey's tile from his head and 
giving it an elegant poise on his own. " But the 
loife of me now, an thot's a fit loike the gintleman 
that I am, — an' it's a thrade, ye say is the same 
now, my good mon. Yees a gintlemon if yees is 
black." Then he pulled his greasy time-worn cap 
over the head of the darkey, who looked as though 
he failed to see that mutual consent of two usually 
necessary to make a bargain, though he acquiesced 
with a fair grace. Pat said, " Good, me foine 
man. The loike o' ye can afford to do that for 
the bloody Twenty-Seventh," — and away he went 
on one of his comical rounds on a double shuffle 
while the darkey and his squad made themselves 
scarce. As the guards showed no disposition to 
interfere, Pat kept the hat. The last we saw of 



374 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

Cufifee he was the centre of a circling squad some 
distance down the track, where he stood cap in 
hand, looking very subdued, while Pat came up to 
us, lifting his hat with a stately bow, and saying, 
" Say, now, an didn't oi worrk that thrade foine 
on the black divel." There seemed to be no com- 
punction in Pat's make-up. 

While I was watching the Irishman's manoeu- 
vres I noticed a citizen coming leisurely along 
through the depot, and stopping occasionally to 
pass a word with the boys. Finally, coming up 
to me, he said, 

" I am told you are from Ohio ; are you from 
any place near Lancaster County? " 

I told him there was a county seat named Lan- 
caster in Fairfield County, but no Lancaster 
County in the State. 

" That is the place," he said. 

I told him it was my county. 

" Good," he said, " there will be a man here 
pretty soon to talk with you," and he passed out 
of the depot, going up the street. 

It was not long before another man came in 
like manner directed to me. He asked me if I 
knew any one of the name of Richwine. I told 
him there was one of that name in my regiment. 

" Well," he said, " that's my brother. I am 
glad to meet you ; come up to my house, I want to 
talk with you." 



«* NEGRO APPLIANCES " 375 

I told him it would be impossible for me to do 
so without a guard. 

" I'll arrange it," he replied. Taking me to 
the officer in charge he said, " I want to take this 
man to my house and give him something to eat, 
if you will allow it. I will vouch for his safe re- 
turn." 

" All right," said the officer, " take him along, 
but be back by sundown, as we expect to start by 
that time." 

So I went with him to his house and had a 
sumptuous repast on bread and milk. He said he 
had not heard from any of his family since the 
breaking out of the war, which found him, 
through matrimonial alliances, with a farm near 
Salisbury and the consequent negro appliances, 
which put him in just such a condition that he 
could not get away without great sacrifice. So he 
concluded to remain and chance it there for a 
small sum, not anything to compare to old prices, 
but much better than to have to turn them loose. 
" Some parties advise me not to sell," said he, 
" but to hold on to them, and if they are liberated 
by the exigencies of war I can recover full value 
from the government. Now, do you think the 
government will remunerate the people of the 
South for her liberated slaves. What is your idea 
of it?" 

" Well," I said, " you are placing me in a deli- 



376 A CAPTIVE OF WAK 

cate position, and asking me a question difficult 
to answer, and at best I can only give you my con- 
victions on the matter, as to what may be done in 
the adjustment of the negro problem, and in doing 
that I may clash swords with you, and possibly 
wound your feelings in your own house, which 
you might consider an unjust return for your 
hospitality." 

" Not at all," he said, " a free, unbiased opin- 
ion is what I want, — the idea of a man who has 
no personal interest in slaves, as all the people 
here have. I want your advice and your opinion 
as a Northern man ; it may decide me as to what 
I should do in the case." 

" Very well, then," I said. 

" You see," he continued, " where I stand, I've 
got to act quickly and make my answer in a day 
or two." 

" My opinion then," said I, " is that the time 
has passed in which the South may indulge a hope 
or even the shadow of a hope for such reimburse- 
ment. If she had accepted the terms of the over- 
tures made by Lincoln's first proclamation, by the 
terms of the proposition the government would be 
held. That was the probationary period. Those 
were the days in which mercy could have been 
found, and the South haughtily refused to ac- 
cept the terms. In Divine law, a mercy rejected 



MERCY REJECTED 377 

is damnation accepted. Now, let me ask you, 
does a conquering nation ever compensate her 
enemies for losses of property they may have in- 
curred as a result of war ? " 

" No, certainly not," he said. 

" Much less, then, would it become the duty 
of a government to reimburse a portion of her 
citizens for losses they may have sustained as a 
result of their rashness in attempting to over- 
throw that government. You see the absurdity 
of the position at once. No human eye in 1861 
could have penetrated sufficiently far into the 
misty future as to know what great social changes 
would be wrought by the conflict. Certainly the 
South had not counted on the abolition of slavery 
as being one of the possible changes. In the first 
place she assumes the position of a total separa- 
tion from the United States and appeals to arbi- 
tration by arms under the infatuation, if you 
please, of an exalted opinion of her own prowess. 
Discouraged by the outlook after three years of 
disastrous war, she now seeks to assume the posi- 
tion of non-liability for her actions, and hopes 
that the government which she sought to over- 
throw will in its magnanimity overlook the heavy 
cost already accrued and add more by paying her 
for the goats and bullocks she oflfered on the 
shrine of her idolatry, or, in other v/ords, paying 



378 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

for her lost property. For what is your slave, 
more than your horse, your cow, your mule, your 
hog, or any other Hvestock you may possess ; he is 
simply a chattel to be disposed of at your will." 

" Very well," he said. 

" Then why can you hope for remuneration 
for a slave more than for any of the rest ? " 

" That is just the view of it I have taken," he 
said. " But our big slaveholders are counting on 
some day getting pay for their freed slaves, if the 
North conquers, and the man who offers to buy 
mine seems to have no fears as to that, and he is 
a bitter rebel." 

" Well," I said, " as you ask my advice, I 
think you will be foolish to hesitate a moment in 
making a transfer of your slaves to him." 

" But then," he said, " you may not know the 
warm ties that exist between us and our slaves. 
I would hate to sell mine to him and have him 
sell them and separate them." 

" Very true," I said, " under the old regime, 
but don't you understand that virtually they are 
free already, and Sherman is liable to drop in on 
you any day and then they are free indeed. If 
you can secure yourself by the sale, let him have 
them ; it will be good enough for him. Sherman 
has probably taken Columbia by this time, and 
will soon be here." 



BURNING OF COLUMBIA 379 

" Yes,"- he replied ; " word came here last Sat- 
urday evening that General Hampton had evacu- 
ated Columbia and set fire to the town. Wins- 
boro had also been taken." 

While I was prepared to hear of Hampton's 
evacuation, I was surprised to learn that he had 
applied the torch to the place, and asked what 
reasons were assigned for so doing, as there was 
certainly no military advantage to be gained by 
it, the city being of no particular advantage to 
Sherman. 

" No," he said. " But when Hampton with- 
drew he left a regiment of cavalry, with orders, 
when all available stores were removed, to burn 
what remained, together with all the cotton, a 
considerable quantity of which had been collected 
there. This was done, and from this the fire ex- 
tended to the city, urged on by a stiff breeze blow- 
ing at the time." 

" Yes," I said, " and the Yankee will get the 
credit of it ! " 

" No," he said, " the report is that they did 
all in their power to put out the fire, and it was 
only through their exertions that the city was not 
entirely destroyed, and this report I heard con- 
firmed by other parties soon afterwards." 

Thus I passed the afternoon very pleasantly 
with Mr. Richwine, and when it became time 



38o A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

to return he gave me a liberal supply of light bis- 
cuit and butter to take along, which my friends 
Atwater and Smith made rapid disposal of. 

Sundown came, but no means were supplied for 
our journey, and sunrise found us still in the 
depot. We might possibly have felt easier if we 
had been a little farther removed from the prison, 
which was but a short distance away to our left. 
Yet some way I felt that we would not again be 
put under such severe restriction. My friend of 
the day before came to see if we got away. Find- 
ing us still there, with no provision, he told me to 
keep watch up the track for his negro boy, whom 
he would send with something to breakfast on. 
Soon after I saw a little darkey lugging a market 
basket, dodging back and forth among the cars. 
Coming up to where I was standing, he set the 
basket at my feet and passed out. I found a feast 
within that might have done justice to the 
stomach of an epicure, hot mashed potatoes, 
sauerkraut, chicken, and biscuit enough to last 
all day. 

In the afternoon Mr. Richwine came down again 
and visited me for fully an hour. It seemed to do 
him good to have some one to freely express him- 
self to. As he took me by the hand to bid me 
good-by he pressed a twenty-dollar Confederate 
bill into my palm, saying it might do me some 
good before I reached the lines. It was not much, 



THE UNION LINES 381 

very truly, but the spontaneity of the gift, and 
the spirit in which it was given, spoke a value 
for it far beyond its intrinsic worth, and for that 
value I still retain the bill, as a souvenir, — " the 
silver lining," if you please, to the dark cloud of 
surrounding circumstances. 

Near the depot on the opposite side of the town, 
and on the same side as the prison, was a large 
building used as an armory. From the workmen 
there several came to talk with us. One espe- 
cially, I remember, asked if I thought he would 
be conscripted and forced into the army if he went 
North. He said that that was the report circu- 
lated there, that all refugees were conscripted, but 
if he was sure there would be no danger he and 
several more fellow workmen at the armory would 
make their escape to the North. I assured him 
there would be no danger at all on that point, as 
the appearance of a stranger anywhere in the 
North would not even be a matter for comment, 
let alone for conscription, but I advised him, if 
he had any interests at stake, to remain where he 
was, if he was so situated by his mechanical skill 
that he would be exempt from conscription in the 
Southern army. I told him that if he had a posi- 
tion for two or three months, by all means to hold 
on to it, and I thought by that time there would 
be no need of his leaving Salisbury to get inside 
the Union lines, as probably the lines would come 



382 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

to him and he would have no principle to sacrifice 
that might make it unpleasant afterwards. He 
said he thought himself that the Confederacy 
was becoming unsteady and tottering. He told 
me substantially the same story regarding the 
evacuation and burning of Columbia that Mr. 
Richwine had. 

The burden of the Confederacy had come to 
be truly onerous, and a system of tithing or mili- 
tary tax-collecting had been organized by which 
the tillers of the soil, and producers generally, 
were required to bring in a percentage of their 
products in kind. The collector at this point we 
found to be John Noles, the Danville Prison stut- 
tering Englishman, whose office was near the de- 
pot. One of the boys, who had been a cook at 
Danville, recognizing him, made himself known. 
Noles asked him if I was in the crowd, and, learn- 
ing that I was, he sent me word to call around 
some time in the afternoon to see him. I must 
confess to considerable astonishment at the de- 
livery of such a message, and told the fellow he 
must have misunderstood him. " No," he said, 
" he asked particularly for you by name and 
wants to see you." 

Really my only acquaintance with Noles was 
when he took me up to headquarters at Danville 
to identify my gold pens, etc., but my curiosity 
was excited and I went up toward evening to his 



HAM AND CORDIALITY 383 

office. He greeted me cordially, and had scarce 
passed the compliments of the day before he began 
to apologize for the false impression he made at 
Danville, saying " Hi th-th-thought you would 
b-b-be hexchanged sh-sh-shure th-th-that time," 
He had a great many questions to ask regarding 
my trials since I left Danville, and talked freely 
and feelingly of the sufferings of the pris- 
oners and the outlook for Confederate suc- 
cess, which he thought dark and foreboding. 
He had prepared and in readiness for me 
a large piece of boiled ham (still hot) and 
some fresh bread, which he hoped would prove 
acceptable, as he had not had time to get 
anything better. He said he was very sorry he 
had not learned sooner of my being there. Cer- 
tainly under these peculiar circumstances I dwell 
with pleasure on this meeting with John Noles, 
Military Collector at Salisbury, N. C. 



CHAPTER XLVIII 

ONCE MORE UNDER THE OLD FLAG 

WE had now been thirty-five hours wait- 
ing at the depot and not a mouth- 
ful of rations had been issued to us dur- 
ing that time. True, circumstances had so 
wonderfully intervened that a portion of us 
had fared sumptuously, and all had by Yankee 
ingenuity and traffic secured something to eat. 
Still the authorities were none the less censurable 
for their negligence, as it would have been all 
the same with them if we had not received 
aid from outside sources. Darkness was again 
settling around us, and we were making prepara- 
tions to spend another night in the depot, when a 
train came along on which we were fortunate 
enough to secure room, and were soon rolling on- 
ward in the direction of the North. 

Sunrise found us at Greensboro. Here the 
train was delayed some time, and we were per- 
mitted to get off, but not to leave the train. The 
captain in command of the guard said, 

" Keep them men together near the train, as 
we do not know how soon we may start." 
384 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE "PAT" 385 

" We have," was the answer made by one near 
me, " all but that fellow over there with the stove- 
pipe hat, and the devil himself could not keep 
him together without shooting him." 

He alluded to Pat, who had wandered off to 
one of the street corners, where he had taken up 
his position, his plug hat set on the forward part 
of his head, and was vigorously dancing a double 
shuffle, singing at the same time in stentorian 
voice, " St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," to the 
amusement of a dozen or more citizens whom his 
antics had drawn around him. 

By the time they got Pat gathered in, the order 
came to mount, and we moved on to Raleigh. 
Here we again entered a scene of jam and confu- 
sion which seemed inextricable. An extra guard 
was thrown around us, composed of boys from 
fourteen to eighteen years of age and men from 
the workshops. The boys were under military 
training, wore a uniform, and bore the chivalric 
name of cadets. A great many of them looked 
out of proportion to the guns they carried, and 
brought forcibly to my mind the time-worn 
verses : 

" Oh, were you ne'er a schoolboy." 

One of them came near having serious results 
to me. I was standing in the door of the car — a 
common box car — when one of the boys, in at- 



386 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

tempting to get in on the other side, tossed his 
gun in first, which struck in such a way as to dis- 
charge it, the ball striking me squarely on the heel 
of my right foot and bounding back several feet. 
I really thought my whole foot was gone. The 
force threw my foot out vertically. Smith, who 
was sitting near, cried out, " Hyde is shot," and 
sprang to my assistance. On examination it 
proved to be a severe contused wound, drawing 
but little blood, but most excruciatingly painful. 
It was certainly a most wonderful and provi- 
dential circumstance. The cartridge was lightly 
charged, as at that distance a full cartridge would 
have blown my foot to atoms. As it was, it spoke 
well for the toughness of my tendo Achillis, prov- 
ing me to be more invulnerable in that point than 
Achilles himself. 

After rations had been issued to us in the raw 
state, we were taken a mile or so out of town and 
went into camp, or rather field, as we had no camp 
equipage of any kind, nor any cooking utensils 
outside of our prison make-shift. My foot 
pained me so that I could not walk, and two of 
the boys carried me on a pole, one at each end, 
while I sat on it with an arm around each of their 
necks. We had received accessions to our ranks 
at different points since leaving Salisbury, so that 
we now numbered several hundred as ragged, 
squalid-looking men as ever squadded together. 



IN SIGHT OF HOME 387 

though we were mostly in good spirits, in antici- 
pation of near exchanges. 

We remained at Raleigh until the next morn- 
ing, when we again boarded the cars for Golds- 
boro, arriving there early next day. There we 
were to be paroled preparatory to being sent 
through the lines. As we were marching from 
the train to the camp, perhaps half a mile distant, 
one of the sick men lay down in the road ex- 
hausted, and died. Poor fellow, he was not able 
to travel, but the excitement produced by the 
hope of a near exchange had acted as a tonic for a 
time and nerved him to attempt the trip in hopes 
that he might reach his friends and find him " a 
grave in his childhood's home ! " The tenacity 
with which he clung to life was really surprising, 
bearing up until he fell exhausted and died in a 
few seconds. No one seemed to know him, and a 
grave was hastily dug and he was buried where 
he fell at the side of the road. We passed the 
spot a few hours afterward on our return to the 
railroad. We were paroled and started toward 
Wilmington that evening, reaching neutral 
ground on the 27th of February, 1865, about ten 
o'clock in the morning. 

As the train was brought to a halt right in the 
woods, and we were ordered to get out, we be- 
held on the left-hand side of the train an officer 
and company of United States soldiers standing 



388 A CAPTIVE OF WAR 

ready to receive us. It was a glorious sight to 
our prison-wearied eyes. The Stars and Stripes 
proudly waved above them, emblem of the free. 
Fronting them was a company of Confederates 
with the contemptible rag floating over them 
under which we had seen so much misery. It 
seemed to me that the old flag and the boys in blue 
never looked so beautiful. Much as I wanted to 
give a hearty cheer, I could not utter a word. I 
was really too full for utterance. To be free 
again and to feel that we were breathing the air of 
freedom was enough. 

For one year five months and seven days we 
had seen nothing but trouble under the shadow of 
the Confederate " Bars," and finding ourselves 
once more " within the lines " seemed the dawning 
of a new era. It hardly seemed possible that all the 
misery I had seen and suffered could be crowded 
into the memory of those months. Even now, as 
I look back and reflect upon the privations and ex- 
posures, the heavy drain upon the physical and 
mental system to which we were exposed, I am 
not surprised at the fearful results of the well 
matured and executed plan of the rebel prison 
system, but I am surprised that so many of us 
lived through it from its inception to its close 
and are still alive. What atrocities were com- 
mitted in the name of Liberty and " Southern 
Rights." How applicable were the dying words 



THE OLD FLAG! 389 

of Madame Roland as she bowed her head to the 
guillotine : " O, Liberty, how many crimes are 
committed in thy name! " To that tattered, dirt- 
begrimed, disease-shattered crowd who shook the 
dust from their feet as they passed from beneath 
the Stars and Bars to the protection of the Stripes 
and Stars, the Old Flag had a newer and grander 
significance than it had ever borne before to us! 
It was the emblem of Life, of Light, of Home, 
and was rendered doubly dear to us by our long 
sojourn beneath the shadow of one whose reign 
was Terror ! 



THE END 



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